SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



-BUBEA1 OF ITILXol,,,;^ % 



INTRODUCTION 



STUDY OF SIGN LANGUAGE 



NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 



ILLUSTRATING THE GESTURE SPEECH OF MANKIND 



By GARRICK MALLERY 

l'.l.'i:vi,l LIEUT, <'.,!,., r. 8. U3IY 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
18 80 




m 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION- -BUREAU OF HTHNOLOG^ 



INTRODUCTION 



STUDY OF SIGN LANGUAGE 



AMONG Tin: 



NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 



ILLUSTRATING THE GESTURE SPEECH OF MANKIND 



By GARRICK MALLERY 

Bit™ KT 1.11 IT. CI I ., 1. s. ARMY 



W \ S fl I NO TON' 
lin V i: i: N M EN I IMS I NT I NG OFF tOK 

1880 



Smithsonian Institution, 

Bureau of Ethnology, 
Washington, D. C, February 12, L880. 

Eleven years ago ethnographic research among North American 
Indians was commenced by myself and my assistants while making explo- 
rations on the Colorado River and its tributaries. From that time to the 
present such investigations have been in progress. 

During this time the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution placed 
in my hands a large amount of material collected by its collaborators 
relating to Indian languages and other matters, to be used, in conjunction 
with the materials collected under my direction, in the preparation of a 
series of publications on North American Ethnology. In pursuing this work 
two volumes have already been published, a third is in press, and a number 
of others are in course of preparation. 

The work originally begun as an incident to a geographical and geo- 
logical survey has steadily grown in proportions until a large number of 
assistants and collaborators are engaged in the collection of materials and 
the preparation of memoirs on a variety of subjects relating to the North 
American Indians. The subject under investigation is of great magnitude. 
More than five hundred languages, belonging to aboul seventy distinct 
stocks or families, are spoken by these Indians; and in all other brani 
of this ethnic research a like variety of subject-matter exists. It will thus 
be seen that the materials for a systematic and comprehensive treatment of 
this subject can only be obtained by the combined labor of many men. My 
experience has demonstrated that a deep interest in Anthropology is wideh 
spread among the educated people of the country, -as from ever) hand 
assistance is tendered, and thus valuable material is steadily accumulating; 
but experience has also demonstrated that much effort is losi tor want oi u 



I\ 

proper comprehension of th< subjects and methods of investigation apper- 
this branch <>i scientiBc research. For this reason a series of 
pamphlet publications, designed t" give assistance and direction in these 
us, has been commei 
first of the series was prepared by myself and issued under the 
till,. ,,i "Introduction to the Study •>!' [ndian Languages;" the second is 
the present, upon Sign-Language ; and a third. I>\ Dr. If. C. Yarrow, United 
Army, designed \<> incite inquiry into mortuary observances and 
beliefs concerning tin' dead prevailing among the Indian tribes, will shortly 
-mil. Other publications of a like character will be prepared from 
time t<> time. These publications are intended to serve a somewhat tempo- 
rary purpose until a. manual for the use of students of American Anthro- 
pology i- completed 

J. W. POWELL. 



INQUIRIES AND SUGGESTIONS 

UPON 

SIGN-LANGUAGE AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 



BY GARRICK MALLERY. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

The Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution lias in prep- 
aration a work upon Sign-Language among- the North American Indians, 
and, further, intended to be an exposition of the gesture-speech of mankind 
thorough enough to be of suggestive use to students of philology and of 
anthropology in general. The present paper is intended to indicate the 
scope of that future publication, to excite interest and invite correspond- 
ence on the subject, to submit suggestions as to desirable points and modes 
of observation, and to give notice of some facilities provided for descrip- 
tion and illustration. 

The material now collected and collated is sufficient to show that the 
importance of the subject deserves exhaustive research and presentation by 
scientific methods instead of -being confined to the fragmentary, indefinite, 
and incidental publications thus far made, which have never yet been united 
for comparison, and are most of them difficult of access. Many of the 
descriptions given in the lists of earlier date than those contributed during 
the past year in response to special request are too curt and incomplete to 
assure the perfect reproduction of the sign intended, while in others the 
very idea or object of the sign is loosely expressed, so that for thorough 
and satisfactory exposition they require to be both corrected and supple- 
mented, and therefore the cooperation of competent observers, to whom 

1st. 



2 OBJECT OF TNI'. PRESENT WORK 

this pamphlet is addressed, and to whom it will be mailed, is urgently 
requested. 

The publication will mainly consist of a collation, in the form of a 
vocabular} . of .ill authentic signs, including signals made at a distance, with 
their description, as also that of any specially associated facial expression, 
Bel fortli in language intended to be so clear, illustrations being added when 
- ir \ , thai they can !»• reproduced 1a tic- reader. The descriptions con- 
tributed, as also the explanation or conception occurring- to or ascertained 
h\ the contributors, will he given in their own words, with their own illus- 
tration- when furnished or when they can be designed from written descrip- 
tions, and always with individual credit as well as responsibility. The signs 
arranged in the vocabulai-y will he compared in their order with those of 
deaf-mutes, with those of foreign tribes of mien, whether ancient or modern, 
and with tin- suggested radicals of languages, for assistance in which com- 
parisons travelers ami scholars are solicited to contribute in the same 
manner ami with the same credit above mentioned. The deductions and 
generalizations of the editor of the work will be separate from this vocabu- 
lary though based upon it, and sonic of those expressed in this preliminary 
paper may 1»- modified on full information, as there is no conscious desire 
to maintain any preconceived theories. Intelligent criticisms will be grate- 
fully received, considered, and given honorable place. 

PRACTICAL VALUE OF SKIN LANGUAGE. 

The mosl obvious application of Indian sign-language will for its 
practical utility depend, to a large extent, upon the correctness of the view 
submitted by the presenl writer, in opposition to an opinion generally 
entertained, that it is not a mere semaphoric repetition of traditional sig- 
nals, whether or not purely arbitrary in their origin, but is a cultivated 
art. founded upon principles which can lie readily applied by travelers and. 
officials so as to give them much independence of professional interpreters — 
a cla>s dangerously deceitful and tricky. Possessing this art, as distin- 
guished fr a limited list of memorized motions, they would accomplish 

lor themselves the desire of the Prince of Pontus, who begged of Nero an 
accomplished pantomimisl from the Roman theater, to interpret among his 



PRACTICAL VALUE OF SIGN-LANGUAGE. 3 

many-tongued subjects. This advantage is not merely theoretical, but 
been demonstrated to be practical by a professor in a deaf-mute collet 
who, lately visiting several of the wild tribes of the plains, made himself 
understood among all of them without knowing a word of any of their 
languages; nor would it only obtain in connection with American tribes 
being applicable to intercourse with savages in Africa and Asia, though it 
is not pretended to fulfill by this agency the schoolmen's dream of an oecu- 
menical mode of communication between all peoples in spite of their dia- 
lectic divisions. 

Sign-language, being- the mother utterance of nature, poetically styled 
by Lamartine the visible attitudes of the soul, is superior to all others in 
that it permits every one to find in nature an image to express his thoughts 
on the most needful matter.-, intelligently to any other person, though it 
must ever henceforth be inferior in the power of formulating thoughts now 
attained by words, notwithstanding the boast of Roscius that he could 
convey mure varieties of sentiment by gesture alone than Cicero could in 
oratory. 

It is true that gestures excel in graphic and dramatic effecl applied to 
narrative and to rhetorical exhibition; but speech, when highly cultivated, 
is better adapted to generalization and abstraction; therefore to logic and 
metaphysics. Some of the enthusiasts in signs have, however, contended 
that this unfavorable distinction is not from any inherent incapability, 
but because their employment has not been continued unto perfection, and 
that if they had been elaborated by the secular labor devoted to spoken 
language they might in resources and distinctness have exceeded many 
forms of the latter. Gallaudet, Pelt, and others may be right in assert- 
ing that man could by his arms, hands, and fingers, with facial and bodily 
accentuation, express any idea that could be conveyed by words. The pro- 
cess regarding abstract ideas is only a variant from that of oral speech, in 
which the words for the most abstract ideas, such as law, virtue, infinitude, 
and immortality, are shown by Max Muller to have been derived and 
deduced, that is, abstracted from sensuous impressions In tin 
signs the countenance and manner as well a- the tenor decide whether 
objects themselves are intended, or the forms, positions, qualities, and 
motions of other objects which are suggested, and signs lor moral and 



, xii, 10 DECIPHER PICTOGEAPHS. 

intellectual ideas, founded on analogies, are common all over the world as 
wel] i i pta of the intangible and invisible are 

learned through percepts of tangible and visible objects, whether 
,-,,,.,11, to the eye or to the ear, in terms of sight or of sound. 

It will be admitted that the elements of the sign-language are truly 
natural and universal. ly recurring to which the less natural signs adopted 
dialectically or for expedition ran, with perhaps some circumlocution, be 
explained. This power of interpreting itself is a peculiar advantage, for 
spoken languages, unless explained by gestures or indications, can only be 
interpreted by means of some other spoken language. There is another 
<•liara.-tcri.-lii- of the gesture-speech that, though it cannot be resorted to in 
the dark, nor where the attention of the person addressed has not been 
otherwise attracted, it has the countervailing benefit of use when the voice 
could not be employed. When highly cultivated its rapidity on familiar 
subjects exceeds thai of speech and approaches to that of thought itself. 
Tins statemenl may be startling to those who only notice that a selected 
spoken word may convey in an instant a meaning Tor which the motions of 
even an expert in signs maj require a much longer time, but it must be 
considered that oral speech is now wholly conventional, and that with the 
similar development of sign-language conventional expressions with hands 
and bodj could In- made more quickly than with the vocal organs, because 
more organs could be worked at once. Without such supposed develop- 
ment the habitual communication between deaf-mutes and among Indians 
using perhaps as rapid as between the ignorant class of speakers 

upon the same subjects, and in many instances the signs would win at a 
trial of speed. 

Apart from their practical value for use with living members of the 
tribes, our native semiotics will surely help the archaeologist in his study 
of native picture-writing, the sole form of aboriginal records, for it was but 

one e step to fasten upon bark, skins, or rocks the evanescent air-pictures 

thai .-till in pigments or carvings preserve their skeleton outline, and in 
their ideograph} approach the rudiments of a phonetic alphabet. Gesture- 
is, in fact, not only a picture-language, but is actual writing, 
though dissolving and sympathetic, and neither alphabetic nor phonetic. 






THE SYNTAX OF SIGNS. f, 

Though written characters are in our minds associated with speech, they 
are shown, by successful employment in hieroglyphs and by educated 
deaf-mutes, to be representative of ideas without the intervention of sounds, 

and so also an- the outlines of signs. This will be more apparent if the 
motions expressing the most prominent feature, attribute, or function of 
an object are made, or supposed to be made, so us to leave a luminous 
track impressible to the eye. separate from the members producing it. 'The 
actual result is an immateriate graphic representation of visible objects and 
qualities which, invested with substance, has become familiar to us as the 
rebus, and also appears in the form of heraldic blazonry styled punning 
or "canting." The reproduction of gesture-lines in the pictographs made 
by our Indians seems to have been most frequent in the attempt tu con- 
vey those subjective ideas which were beyond the range of an artistic skill 
limited to the direct representation of objects, so that the part of the picto- 
graphs, which is still the most difficult of interpretation. is precisely the 
one which the study of sign-language is likely to eludicate. In this con- 
nection it maybe mentioned that a most interesting resull has been obtained 
in the tentative comparison so far made between the gesture-signs of our 
Indians and some of the characters in the Chinese, Assyrian. Mexican, and 
Runic alphabets or syllabaries, and also with Egyptian hieroglyphs. 

While the gesture-utterance presents no other part of grammar to the 
philologist besides syntax, or the grouping and sequence of its ideographic 
pictures, the arrangement of signs when in connected succession affords 
an interesting comparison with the early syntax of vocal language, and 
the analysis of their original conceptions, studied together with the holo- 
phrastic roots in the speech of the gesturers, may aid to ascertain some 
relation between concrete ideas and words. Meaning does no, adhere 
to the phonetic presentation of thought, while it does to signs. The 
latter are doubtless more flexible and in that sense more mutable than 
ds, but the ideas attached to them are persistent, and then ton- there 
not' much greater metamorphosis in the signs than in the cognitions. 
The further a language has been developed from its primordial root., 
which have been twisted into forms no longer suggesting any reason 
tor their original selection, and the more the primitive significance ol 



woi 
is 



AID TO AMERICAN LING1 I- I CCS. 

ords lias disappeared, the fewer points of contact can it retain with 
The higher languages are more precise because the conscious- 

f |||,. derivation of mosl of their words is lost, so that they have 

I,,.,.,,: igreedupon; but in our native dia- 

whicli have not advanced in that direction to the degree exhibited by 

man, the connection between the idea and the word is 

on ly less obvious than thai -till unbroken between the idea and the 

ml they remain strongly affected by the concepts of outline, form, 

. position, ami feature on which gesture is founded, while they are 
similar in their fertile combination of radicals. I'm- these reasons the forms 

jn-language adopted l>\ our Indians will be of special value to the 
student of American linguistics. 

A comparison sometimes drawn between sign-language and that of 
our Indians, founded on the statement of their common poverty in abstract 
expressions, is nol just to either. Allusion has before been made to the 
capacities of the gesture-speech in that regard, and a deeper study into 
Indian tongues has shown thai they are by no means so confined to the con- 
crete as was once believed. 

Indian language < sistsof a series of words that are but slightly differ- 
entiated parts of speech following each other in the order suggested in the 
mind el' the speaker without absolute laws of arrangement, as its sentences 
are nol completely integrated. The sentence necessitates parts of speech, 
and parts of speech are possible only when a language has reached that 
stage where sentences are logically constructed. The words of an Indian 
tongue being synthetic or undifferentiated parts of speech, are in this respect 
strictly analogous to the gesture elements which enter into a sign-language. 
riie stud) of the latter is therefore valuable for comparison with the words 
of the speech. The one language throws much light upon the other, and 
neither can he studied to the best advantage without a know ledge of the 
other. 

ORIGIN AN!) EXTENT OF GESTURE-SPEECH. 

It is an accepted maxim thai nothing is thoroughly understood unless 
finning is known. While this can never he absolutely accomplished 
^•n-language, it may be traced to, and claims general interest from, 



ORIGIN AM) EXTENT OF GESTURESPEECII. 

its illustration of the ancient intercommunication of mankind by gesture. 
Many arguments have been adduced and more may be presented to prove 
that the latter preceded articulate speech. The corporeal movements of 
the lower animals to express, at least, emotion have been correlated with 
those of man, and classified by Darwin as explicable on the principles of 
serviceable associated habits, of antithesis, and of the constitution of the 
nervous system. A child employs intelligent gestures long in advance of 
speech, although very early and persistent attempts are made to give it 
instruction in the latter but none in the former; it learns language only 
through the medium of signs ; and long after familiarity with speech, consults 
the gestures and facial expressions of its parents and nurses as if to trans- 
late or explain their words ; which facts are important in reference to the 
biologic law that the order of development of the individual is the same as 
that of the species. Persons of limited vocabulary, whether foreigners to 
the tongue employed, or native, but not accomplished in its use, even in 
the midst of a civilization where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for 
words resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild nor mean- 
ingless, but picturesque and significant, though perhaps made by the ges- 
turer for the first time ; and the same is true of the most fluent talkers on 
occasions when the exact vocal formula desired does not at once SUggesI itself, 
oris not satisfactory without assistance from the physical machinery uol 
embraced in the oral apparatus. Further evidence of the unconscious sur- 
vival of gesture-language is afforded by the ready and involuntary response 
made in signs to signs when a man with the speech and habits of civiliza- 
tion is brought into close contact with Indians or deaf-mutes. Without 
having ever before seen or made one of their signs he will soon not only 
catch the meaning of theirs, but produce his own, which they will likewise 
comprehend, the power seemingly remaining latent in him until calledforth 
by necessity. The signs used by uuinstructed congenital deaf-mutes and 
the facial expressions and gestures of the congenitally blind also present 
considerations under the heads of "heredity" and "atavism;' of some weight 
when the subjects are descended from and dwell anion-- people who had 
disused gestures for generations, but of less consequence in cases such as 
that mentioned by Cardinal Wiseman of an Italian blind man who, curiously 



A p:< . I IIENTS FOB PRIOKITY OF GESTURE. 

I,, ugec l the precise signs made by his neighbors. Tt is further 

te( j thai semi-idiotic children who cannol be taught more than the 
liments of speech can receive a considerable amounl of knowledge 
t | irou and express themselves by them, and thai sufferers from 

aphasia continue to use appropriate gestures after their words are uncon- 
trollable. In cases where men have been long in solitary confinement, 
been abandoned, or otherwise have become isolated from their fellows, they 
have lost speech entirely, in which they required to be reinstructed through 
gestures in the same manner that missionaries, explorers, and shipwrecked 
mariners became acquainted with tongues before unknown to civilization. 
These facts arc to be considered in connection with the general law of evo- 
lution, thai in cases of degeneration the last and highest acquirements arc 
losl first 

The fact thai the deaf-mute thinks without phonetic expression is a 
Btumbling-block to Max Muller's ingenious theory of primitive speech, to 
th<' effi cl thai man had a creative faculty giving to each conception, as it 
thrilled through his brain for the first time, a special phonetic expression, 
which faculty became extind when its necessity ceased. 

In conjecturing the first attempts of man or his hypothetical ancestor 
at the expression either of percepts or concepts, it is difficult to connect 
vocal Bounds with any large number of objects, but readily conceivable 
that there should have been resort, next to actual touch (of which all the 

- may be modifications) to suggesl the characteristics of their forms 
and movements to the ey< — fully exercised before the tongue — so soon as 
the arms and fingers became free for the requisite simulation or portrayal. 
There is no distinction between pantomime and sign-language except that 
the former is the parent of the latter, which is more abbreviated and less 
obvious. Pantomime acts movements, reproduces forms and positions, pre- 
sents pictures, and manifests emotions with greater realization than any 
Other mode of utterance. It may readily be supposed that a trogdolyte 
man would desire to communicate the finding of a cave in the vicinity of a 

P ure I 'i circled with sofl grass, and shaded by trees hearing edible fruit. 

mral sound is connected with any of those objects, but the position 
and size of the cave, its distance and direction, the water, its quality, and 



GESTURE ONCE COPIOUS BEYOND WORDS. Q 

amount, the verdant circling carpet, and the kind and height of the t 
could have been made known by pantomime in the days of the mammoth, 

if articulate speech had not then been established, precisely as Indians or 
deaf-mutes would now communicate the news by the same agencj or by 
signs possessing a natural analogy. 

Independent of most of the above considerations, bul from their own 

failures and discordancies, linguistic scholars have recently decided that 
both the "how-wow" and the "ding-dong" theories are unsatisfactory; 
that the search for imitative, onomatopoetic, and directly expressive sounds 
to explain the origin of human speech has been too exclusive, and that many 
primordial roots of language have been founded in the involuntary sounds 
accompanying- certain actions. As, however, the action was the essential, 
and the consequent or concomitant sound the accident, it would lie expected 
that a representation or feigned reproduction of the action would have been 
used to express the idea before the sound associated with that action could 
have been separated from it. The visual onomatopoeia of gestures, which 
even yet have been subjected to but slight artificial corruption, would 
therefore serve as a key to the audible. It is also contended that in the 
pristine days, when the sounds of the only words yet formed had close con- 
nection with objects and the ideas directly derived from them, signs were 
as much more copious for communication than speech as the sight embraces 
more and more distinct characteristics of objects than does the sense of 
hearing. 

The preponderance of authority is that man, when in the possession of 
all his faculties, did not choose between voice and gesture, both being orig- 
inally instinctive, as they both are now, and never, with those faculties, was 
in a state where the one was used to the absolute exclusion of the other. 
With the voice he at first imitated the few sounds of nature, while with ges- 
ture he exhibited actions, motions, positions, forms, dimensions, directions, 
and distances, and their derivatives. It would appear from this unequal di- 
vision of capacity that oral sp • ech remained rudimentary long after ges- 
ture had become an art. With the concession of all purely imitative sounds 
and of the spontaneous action of the vocal organs under excitement, it is 
still true that the connection between ideas and words generally depended 



],, MODERN i 8E OF GESTURES \M» SIGNS. 

upon a compact between the speaker and hearer whirl, presupposes the 

. ;|( .,. of a prior mode of communication. 

I purpose there is. however, no need to determine upon 
the priority between communication of ideas by bodily motion and by vocal 
articulation. It is enough to admil that the connection between them was 

rly and intimate thai the gestures, in the wide sense indicated of pre- 
senting ideas under physical forms, had a direcl formative effect upon many 
words; that they exhibil the earliesl condition of the human mind; are 
traced from the farthesl antiquity among all peoples possessing records; 
are universally prevalenl in the savage stage of social evolution; survive 
agreeably in the scenic pantomime, and still adhere to the ordinary speech 

Of civilized man by motionsof the lace, hands, head, and body, often invol- 
untary, often purposely in illustration or emphasis. 

MODERN I si: OF GESTURES AND SKINS. 

The power of the visible gesture relative to and its influence upon 
the words of modern oral speech are perhaps, with the qualification here- 
after indicated, in inverse proportion to the general culture, but do not 
bear that or any constant proportion to the development of the several 
languages with which gesture is still more or less associated They are 
affected more bj the sociological conditions of the speakers than by the 
degree of excellence of their tongue. The statement is frequently made 

that gesture is yet to s e highly-advanced languages a necessary modify- 

ictor, and that only when a language has become so artificial as to be 
completely expressible in written signs — indeed, has been remodeled through 
their lout: familiar us< — can the bodily signs be wholly dispensed with. The 
story lias been told by travelers in many parts of the world that various 
languages cannot In- clearly understood in the dark by their possessors, 
using then mother tongue between themselves. The evidence for this any- 
wbere is suspicious, and when it is, as it often has been, asserted about 
Bome of the tribes of North American Indians, it is absolutely false, and 
musl he attributed to the error nf travelers who, ignorant of the dialect, 
never see the natives excepl \\ Ian trying to make themselves intelligible to 
their visitors 1>\ a practice which they have found by experience to have 



INDIAN TONGUES NOT DEPENDENT ON GESTURE. | I 

been successful with strangers to their tongue, or perhaps when they are 
guarding against being overheard by others. In fact, individuals of those 
American tribes specially instanced in these reports as unable to converse 
without gesture, often, in their domestic abandon, wrap themselves up in 
robes or blankets with only breathing holes before the nose, so that no part 
of the body is seen, and chatter away for hours, telling long stories. IT 
in daylight they thus voluntarily deprive themselves of the possibility of 
making signs, it is clear that then- preference for talks around the fire ai 
night is explicable by very natural reasons without the one attributed. 
The inference, once carelessly made from the (Vee use of gesture by some 
of the Numa stock, that their tongue was too meager for use without 
signs, is refuted by the now ascertained fact that their vocabulary is 
remarkably copious and their parts of speech better differentiated than those 
of man}' people on whom no such stigma has been affixed. All theories, 
indeed, based upon the supposed poverty of American languages musl 
be abandoned. 

The true distinction is that where people speaking precisely the same 
dialect are not numerous, and are thrown into constant contact on equal 
terms with others of differing dialects and languages, gesture is necessarily 
resorted to for converse with the latter, and remains as a habit or accom- 
plishment among themselves, while large bodies enjoying common speech, 
and either isolated from foreigners, or, when in contact with them, so domi- 
nant as to compel the learning and adoption of their own tongue, become 
impassive in its delivery. The undemonstrative Knglish, long insular, and 

now rulers when spread over continents, maybe c pared with the profusely 

gesticulating Italians dwelling in a maze of dialects and subject for centu- 
ries either to foreign rule or to the influx of strangers on whom they de- 
pended. King Ferdinand returning to Naples after the revolt of L821, and 
finding that the boisterous multitude would not allow his voice to be heard, 
resorted successfully to a, royal address in signs, giving reproaches, threats, 
admonitions, pardon, and dismissal, to the entire satisfaction of the assem 
bled lazzaroni, which rivalry of Punch would, in London, have occasioned 
measureless ridicule and disgust. The difference in what is vaguely styled 
temperament does not wholly explain this contrast, for the performance waa 



|2 THE Tsi\( k JARGON. 

creditable both to the readiness of the Kin-' in an emergency and to the 
aptness of his people, the main distinction being that in Italy there was a 

„; ze( ] and cultivated language of signs long disused in Great Britain. 
Ah the number of dialects in any district decreases so ^\ ill the gestures, 
though doubtless there is also influence from the facl ao1 merely that a lan- 
has 1 n reduced to and modified by writing, but that people who 

are accustomed generally to read and write, as are the English and Ger- 
mans will after a time think and talk as they write, and without the ac- 
companiments still persistent among Hindus, Arabs, and the less literate 
Europeans. 

Man} instances are shown of the discontinuance of gesture -speech 
with no development in the native language of the gesturers, but from the 
invention for intercommunication of one used in common. The Kalapuyas 
Southern Oregon until recently U3ed a sign -language, but have grad- 
ually adopted for foreign intercourse the composite tongue, commonly called 
the Tsinuk or Chinook jargon, which probablyarose for trade purposes on the 
Columbia River before the advent of Europeans, founded on the Tsinuk, 
Tsihali, Nutka, &c, but now enriched by English and French terms, and 
have nearly forgotten their old signs. The prevalence of this mongrel 
speech, originating in the same causes that produced the pigeon-English 
or lingua-franca of the* Orient, explains the marked scantness of sign-language 
among the tribes of the Northwest coast. No explanation is needed for 
the disuse of thai mode of communication when the one of surrounding 
civilization is recognized as necessary or important to be acquired, and 

tally becomes known as the best common medium, even before it is 
actually spoken by many individuals of the several tribes. 

IS INDIAN sii.N LANGUAGE UNIVERSAL AND IDENTICAL? 

The assertion has been made by many writers, and is currently re- 
peated by Indian traders and some Army officers, that all the tribes of 
North America have had and still use a common and identical sign-language 
of ancient origin, in which they can communicate freely without oral assist- 
ance. The fact that this remarkable statement is at variance with some of 
the principles of the formation and use of signs set forth by Dr. Tylor, 



IS INDIAN SIGN-LANGUAGE UNIVERSAL AND [DENTICAL1 13 

whose inimitable chapters on gesture-speech in his " Researches into the 
Early History of Mankind" have in a great degree prompted the present 
inquiries, dors not appear to have attracted the attention of that eminent 
authority. He receives the report without question, and formulates it, that 
"the same signs serve as a medium of converse from Hudson Bayto the 
Gulf of Mexico." Its truth can only be established by careful comparison 
of lists or vocabularies of signs taken under test conditions at widely dif- 
ferent times and places. For this purpose lists have been collated by the 
writer, taken in different parts of the country at several dates, from the lasl 
century to the last month, comprising together more than eight hundred 
signs, many of them, however, being- mere variants or synonyms for the 
same object or quality, and some being- of small value from uncertainty in 
description or authority, or both. 

The result of the collation and analysis thus far made is that the al- 
leged existence of one universal and absolute sign-language is, in its ti 
of general assertion, one of the many popular errors prevailing about our 
aborigines. In numerous instances there is an entire discrepancy between 
the signs made by different bodies of Indians to express the same idea ; 
and if any of these are regarded as determinate, or even widely conven- 
tional, and used without further devices, they will fail in conveying the 
desired impression to any one unskilled in gesture as an art, who had not 
formed the same precise conception or been instructed in the arbitrary 
motion. Probably none of the gestures that are found in current use are, 
in their origin, conventional, but are only portions, more or less elabot 
of obvious natural pantomime, and those proving efficient to convey mosl 
successfully at any time the several ideas became the most widely adopted, 
liable, however, to be superseded by yet more appropriate conceptions and 
delineations. The skill of any tribe and the copiousness el' its signs are 
proportioned to the accidental ability of the few individuals in it who art 
as custodians and teachers, so that tin- several tribes at different times vary 
in their degree of proficiency, and therefore both the precise mode of semi- 
otic expression and the amount of its general use are always fluctuating. 
All the signs, even those classed as innate, were at some time invented by 
some one person, though by others simultaneously and independently, and 



n pro, ess SAME \s AMONG DEAF-MUTES. 

many of them became forgotten and were reinvented. Their prevalence 
an d permanence were determined by the experience of their utility, and it 
would bo highl) interesting to ascertain how long a time was required for 
n distinctl) new conception or execution to gain currency, become "the 
,. in speak, over a large part of the continent, and to be sup- 
planted by a new " mode." 

The process is precisely the same as among the deaf-mutes. One of 
living among his speaking relatives, may invent signs which the 
are taught to understand, though strangers sometimes will not, be- 
cause they may be l>\ no means the fittest expressions. Should a dozen or 

more deaf-mutes, p ed only of such crude signs, come together, they 

w il] be able at first to communicate only on a few common subjects, but 
the number of those and the general scope of expression will be continually 
enlarged. They will also resort to the invention of new signs for new 
as they arise which will be made intelligible, if necessary, through 
the illustration and definition given by signs formally adopted, so that the 
fittest signs will be evolved, after mutual trial, and will survive. A multi- 

plicati f the numbers confined together, either of deaf-mutes or of Indians 

whose speech is diverse, will not decrease the resulting uniformity, though 
it will increase both the copiousness and the precision of the vocabulary. 
The oii]\ one of the correspondents of the present writer who remains 
demonstrativelj unconvinced of the diversities in Indian sign-language, 
perhaps became prejudiced when in charge of a reservation where Arap- 
ahos, < Iheyennes, and Sioux had for a considerable time been kept secluded, 
bo far as could be done by governmental power, from the outer world, and 
where naturally their signs were modified so as to become common property. 

Sometimes signs, doubtless once air-pictures of the most striking out- 
line of an object, or of the most characteristic features of an action, have 
in time become abbreviated and, to some extent, conventionalized among 
members of the same tribe and its immediate neighbors, and have not be- 
come common to them with other tribes simply because the form of abbre- 
viation has been peculiar In other cases, with the same conception and 
attempted characterization, another yel equally appropriate delineation has 
been selected, and when both of the differing delineations have been abbre- 



CAUSES OF THE ERRONEOUS REPORT. i;, 

viated the diversity is vastly increased. The original conception, being 
independent, has necessarily also varied, because all objects have several 
characteristics, and what struck one se1 of people as the mosl distinctive 
of these would not always so impress another. From these reasons we 
cannot expect, without trouble, to understand the etymologj of all tin- 
signs, being less rich in ancillary material than were even the old philolo- 
gists, who guessed at Latin and Greek derivations before they were assisted 
by Sanscrit and other Aryan roots. 

It is not difficult to conjecture some of the causes of the report under 
consideration. Explorers and officials are naturally brought into contact 
more closely with those persons of the tribes visited who are experts in the 
sign-language than with their other members, and those experts are selected, 
on account of their skill as interpreters, as guides to accompany the visit- 
ors. The latter also seek occasion to be present when the signs are used, 
whether with or without words, in intertribal councils, and then the - 
class of experts are the orators, for this long exercise in gesture-speech has 
made the Indian politicians, with no special effort, masters of the arl only 
acquired by our public speakers after laborious apprenticeship before their 
mirrors. The whole theory and practice of sign-language being that all 
who understand its principles can make themselves mutually intelligible, 
the fact of the ready comprehension and response among all the skilled 
gesturers gives the impression of a common code. Furthermore, if the 
explorer learns to use any of the signs used l>y any of the tribes, he will 
probably be understood in any other by the same class of persons who will 
surround him in the latter, thereby confirming him in the '-universal" 
theory. Those of the tribe who are less skilled, but who are not noticed, 
might be unable to catch the meaning of signs which have not been actu- 
ally taught to them, just as ignorant persons among us cannot derive any 
sense from newly-coined words or those strange to their habitual vocabu- 
lary, which linguistic scholars would instantly understand, though never 
before heard, and might afterward adopt. 

In order to sustain the position taken as to the existence of a general 
system instead of a uniform code, admitting the generic unity while deny- 
ing the specific identity, and to show that this is not a distinction without 



1,; ai CflOEITIES FOB SIGNS < [TED. 

u difference, n number of specimens are extracted from the present collec- 
tion of si^ns, which are also in some cases compared with those of deaf- 
mutes and with gestures made by other peoples. 

AUTHOBITIES 1 OB THE SIGNS CITED. 

The Bi'^ns, descriptions of which an- submitted in the present paper, are 
taken from some one or more of the following authorities, viz: 

I A lisl prepared by William Dcnbab, dated Natchez, June 30, 1800, 
collected from tribes then wesl of the Mississippi, but probably not from 
those veiy far west of that river, published in the Transactions of the Amer- 
ican Philosophical Society, vol. vi, as read January 16, 1801, and commu- 
nicated l>\ Thomas Jefferson, president of the society. 

•_'. The one published in 1823 in "An Account of an Expedition from 
Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the years 1819-1820. 
By order ol the Bon. J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the command 
i S. II. Long, of the United States Topographical Engineers." (Com- 
monly called James' Long's Expedition.) This appears to have been col- 
lected chiefly 1>\ Mr. T Say, from the Pani, and the Kansas, Otoes, Mis- 
souris, Iowa-, Omahas, and other southern branches of the great Dakota 
family. 

3 The one i-,. He, -ted by Prince .Maximilian von Wied-Neuwied in 
34, from the Cheyenne, Shoshoni, Ankara, Satsika, and theAbsaroki, 
the Mandans, Hidatsa, and other Northern Dakotas. This list is not pub- 
Ushed in the English edition, but appears in the German, Coblenz, 1839, 
and in the French, Paris, 1840. Bibliographic reference is often made to 
this distinguished explorer as "Prince Maximilian," as if there were not 
man) possessors of that christian name among princely families. For 
brevity the reference in this paper will be " Wied." 

1 The small collection of J. G. Kohl, made about the middle of the 
present century, among the Ojibwas and their neighbors around Lake 
Superior Published in his ■• Kitchigami. Wanderings around Lake Supe- 
rior," London, I860. 

5. Thai of the distinguished explorer, Capt Et. F. Bubton, collected in 
61, from the tribes met or learned of on the overland stage route, 



AUTHORITIES FOR SIGNS CITED. ]7 

including Southern Dakotas, Utes, Shoshoni, Arapahos, Crows, Pani, and 
Apaches. This is contained in •• The ( !ity of the Saints." New York, 1862. 

6. A raanuscsipt list in the possession of the Bureau of Ethnology, 
contributed by Brevet Col. James S. Brisbin, Major Second Cavalry, United 
States Army, probably prepared in L 8 78-79, and chiefly taken from the 
Crows, Shoshoni, and Sioux. 

7. A list prepared in July, 1879, by Mr. Feank 11. Cushing, of the 
Smithsonian Institution, from continued interviews with Titchkematski, an 
intelligent Cheyenne, now employed at thai Institution, whose gestures were 
analyzed, their description as made dictated to a phonographer, and the 
more generic signs also photographed as made before the camera. The 
name of the Indian in reference to this list is used instead of that of the 
collector, as Mr. Cushing has made other contributions, to be separately 
noted with his name for distinctiveness. 

8. A valuableand illustrated contribution from Dr. Washington Mat- 
thews. Assistant Surgeon United States Army, author of "Ethnography 
and Philologv of the Hidatsa Indians," &c, lately prepared from his notes 
and recollections of signs observed during his long service among the In- 
dians of the Upper Missouri and the plains. 

'.». A report of Dr. W. J. Hoffman, from observations among the Te- 
ton Dakotas while Acting Assistant Surgeon, United States Army, and sta- 
tioned at Grand River Agency. Dakota, during 1872-73. 

10 A special contribution from Lieut. II. R. Lemly, Third United 
States Artillery, compiled from notes and observations taken by him in 
1877 among the Northern Arapahos. 

11. Some preliminary notes lately received from Rev. TayLOE V. EALY, 
missionary among the Zuni, upon the signs of that body of Indians. 

12. Similar notes from Rev. A. J. Holt. Denison, Tex., respecting the 

Comanche signs. 

13. Similar notes from Very Rev. Edward Jackeb, Pointe St. Ignace, 

Mich., respecting the Ojibwa. 

14. A special list from Rev. J Owen Dobsey, missionary at Omaha 

Agency, Nebraska, from observations lately made among the Ponkas and 
Omahas. 

2SL 



Ifl DIVERSE CONCEPTIONS AND EXECUTIONS. 

15. A letter from •'. \V. Powell, esq., Indian superintendent, British 
Columbia, relating to liis observations among the Hutine and others. 

\ special list from Dr. Ciiaeles E McChesney, Acting Assistant 
\iiny, of signs collected among the Dakotas (Sioux) 
near Fori H ett, Dakota, during the present winter. 

17. A communication IV Rev. James A Gilfillan, White Earth, 

.Minn . relating to signs observed among the < >jibwas during his long period 
of missionary <lnt\ . still continuing. 

18. A communication from Brevet Col. Richard" I. Dodge, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Twenty-third [nfantry, United States Army, author of "The 
Plains of the Great West and their Inhabitants," &c, relating to his large 
experience with the Indians of the prairies. 

19. A list contributed by Rev. (•. L. Deffenbaugh, of Lapwai, Idaho, 
giving signs obtained at Kamiah, and used by the Sahaptin or Nez Perce's. 

20. Information obtained by Dr. W.J. Eoffmann, in assisting the pres- 
ent writer, from Natshes, a Pah-Ute chief, who was one of a delegation of 
thai tribe to Washington, in January, 1880. 

21. Information from Major J. M. Haworth, special agent of the In- 
dian Bureau, relating to the Comanches. 

The adjunction to the descriptions of the name of the particular author, 
contributor, or person from whom they are severally taken (a plan which 
will lie pursued in the final publication) not only furnishes evidence ot 
authenticity, hut indicates the locality and time of observation. 

[NS1 Wi KS OF DIVERSE CONCEPTIONS AND EXECUTIONS. 

Some examples have been selected id' diverse conceptions and execu- 
tions for the same objeel or thought. 
\ en distincl signs. 

1 Forefinger of righl hand extended, passed perpendicularly down- 
ward, then turned upward in a right line as high as the head. {Long.) 
•• Rising alius e others." 

2. W itli forefinger of righl hand, of which the other fingers are (dosed, 
pointing up, hark to forehead, describe the flight of an arrow shot up and 
turning down again, allowing the hand to drop, the finger pointing down 
""til about the middle of the body. (Brisbin.) Same idea of superior 



CniEF— DAY. |, ( 

height expressed conversely. Almost the same sign, the hand, however, 
being moved downward rapidly and the gesture preceded by touching tin- 
lower lip with the index, the French deaf-mutes use for "command, ' "order." 

3. The extended forefinger of the righi hand, of which the other fingers 
are closed, is raised to the right side of the head, and above it as far as the 
arm ran be extended, and then the hand is brought down in front of the 
body, with wrist bent, the back of hand in front, extended forefinger point- 
ing downward and the others closed. "Raised above others." (McChesney.) 

4. Begin with sign for "man;" then the forefinger of right hand , 
forward and downward, followed by a curved motion forward, outward, and 
downward. (TitcMcemdtski.) "He who sits still and commands others." 

5. Raise the index of right hand, which is held upright; turn the index 
in a circle and lower it a little to the earth. {Wied.) "lie who is the 
center of surrounding inferiors." The air-picture reminds of the royal 
scepter witli its sphere. 

6. Brine- the closed right hand, forefinger pointing up, on o level with 
the face: then bring the palm of the left hand witli force against the right 
forefinger; next send up the right hand above the head, leaving the hit as 
it is. ( Dorset!.) 

7. The Pah-Utes distinguish the head chief of the tribe from the chief of 
a band. For the former they grasp the forelock with the right hand, palm 
backward, pass the hand upward about six inches, anil hold the hair in that 
position a moment; and for the latter they make the same motion, hut 
instead of holding the hair above the head they lay it down over tin right 
temple, holding it there a moment. (Ndtshes.) 

Bay. Seven si^'iis. 

1. Bass the index-finger pointing along the vault of heaven from east 
to west. (Kohl.) Our deaf-mutes use the same sign. 

•2. Same motion with whole right hand. (Brisbin.) 

3. Same motion with forefinger of right hand crooked, followed by 
both hands slightly spread out and elevated to a point in front of and con- 
siderably above the head, then broughl down in a semicircle to a level 
below the shoulder, ending with Olltsp ead palms upward. (TitchM 
This, probably, is the opening out of the day from above, after the risen sun. 



20 



<>.\\ —TO DAY. 



- mph make a circle with the forefingers of both hands. (Burton.) 

The round disk. 

. Place both bands at some distance in front of the breast, apart, and 

backs downward l II 

i; Bring both bands simultaneously from a position in front of the 
body, lingers extended and joined, palms down one above the other, fore- 
arm- horizontal, in a circularly separating manner to their respective sides, 
palm- up and forearms horizontal ; i. e., " Everything is open." (Lemly.) 

7. Both hands raised in front of and a little higher than the head, 
fingers of both hands horizontal, extended, and meeting at the tips, palms 
,,i bands downward, and arms bowed; open up the hands with fingers per- 
p< ndicular, and at once carry the arms out to their full extent to the sides 
of the body, bringing the palms up. "The opening- of the day from above. 
The dispersion of darkness." (McChesney.) 

The French deaf-mutes fold the hands upon each other and the breast, 
then raise them, palms inward, to beyond each side of the head. 

■v. this day, has tour widely discrepant signs in, at least, appear- 
ance. In one, tin- nose is touched with the index tip, followed byamotion 
of tin fisi toward the ground | Burton), perhaps including the idea of "now," 
"here." Iii another, both hands are extended, palms outward, and swept 
bIowI) forward and to each side. (Titchkemdtski.) This may combine the 
idea of now with openness, the first part of it resembling the general deaf- 
mute sign ("V " here" or ••now." 

A third observer gives as used for the idea of the present day the sign 
also used for "hour," viz: join the tips of the thumb and forefinger of the same 
hand, the interior outline approximating a circle, and let the hand pause at 
the proper altitude east or west of the assumed meridian. {Lemly.) 

A fourth reports a compound sign: Firsl make the following sign, which 
is thai for ••now." Forefinger of right hand (of which the other fingers 
tided, raise the arm perpendicularly a little above the right 
side of the bead, 30 that the extended finger will point to the center of the 
heavens and then brought down on a level with the right breast, forefinger 
Ml " pointing up, and immediately carry it to the position required in niak- 



DEATH, DEAD. . ){ 

ing the sign for day as above (McChesney), which is used to complete the 
sign for to-dmj. (McC'hesney.) 
J)r<il//, dead. Seven signs. 

1. Right hand, fingers (runt at height of stomach, then, with n sort of 

flop, throw the hand over with the palm up, finger pointing a little to the 
right and front, hand held horizontal. ( Brisbin. i " Upset, keeled over." 

2. Left, hand flattened and held, hark upward, thumb inward, in fronl 
of and a few inches fn,n, the breast; righl band slightly clasped, forefinger 
more extended than the others, and passed suddenly under die left band, 
the latter being at the same time gently moved toward the breast. | Titchke- 
mdtski.) "Gone under." 

3. Hold the left hand Hat against the face, back outward ; then pass 
the right hand, held in the same manner, under the left, striking and touch- 
ing it lightly. ( Wiiil.) The same idea of "under "or "burial/' quite differently 
executed. Dr. Mc( Ihesney, however, conjectures this sign to he thai of won- 
der or surprise at hearing of a, death, but not a. distinct sign tor the latter. 

4. Throw the forefinger from the perpendicular into a horizontal posi- 
tion toward the earth with the hack downward. (Long.) 

5. Place the left forefinger and thumb against the heart, act as if tak- 
ing a hair from the thumband forefinger of the left hand with the forefinger 
and thumb of the right and slowly cast it from you, only letting the left 
hand remain at the heart, and let the index-finger of the right hand point 
outward toward the distant horizon. (Holt.) 

(I. Palm of hand upward, then a wave-like motion toward the ground. 
(JEaly.) 

7. Place the palm of the hand at a short distance from the side of the 
head, then withdraw it gently in an oblique downward direction, inclining 
the head ami upper part of the body in the same direction. (Jacker.) 

The last authority notes that there is an apparent connection between 
this conception and execution and the etymology of the corresponding 
terms in Ojibwa: "he dies," is nibo; 'die sleeps," is niba. The common idea 
expressed by the gesture is a sinking to rest 'Hie original significance of 
the root nib seems to he "leaning;" anibeia, "it is leaning;" anibekweni, "he 
inclines the head sidewards." The word niba or nibe .only in compounds) 



KILL— FEAU. 

. ys tll , id, rhapa as the falling over, the going to rest, 

or the" death, <>f the day. The term for "leaf" (of a tree or plant), wind. 

may spring from the same root, leaves being the leaning or down- 

,, ; \ pi an j W"ith this may be compared the Chahta term 

for •• leaves," literally translated "tree hair". 

The French deaf-mute conception is that of gently falling or sinking, 
ill.- right index falling from the height of the righl shoulder upon the left 
forefinger toward which the head is inclined. 

In one sign the hands arc held with the edges upward, and the 
righl strikes the left transversely, as in the ad of chopping. This seems to 
convey particularly the notion of a stroke with a tomahawk or war- club. 
/ h ig more definitely expressed as follows: The left hand, thumb 

up, back forwards, not very rigidly extended, is held before the chest and 
struck in the palm with the outer edge of the right hand. (Matthews.) 
Another sign: Smite the sinister palm earthward with the dexter fist sharply, 
in suggestion of going down. ' Burton.) Another: Strike out with the dex- 
ter fist toward the -round, meaning to shut down. (Burton; McCJu 
This same sign is made by the Utes, with the statement that it means "to 
kill" or "stab" with a knife, having reference to the time when that was 
the most common weapon. A fourth: Pass the right under the left fore- 
fingi i I "make go under." The threat, "] will kill you," appears 

in one case as directing the right hand toward the offender and springing 
the finger from the thumb as in the act of sprinkling water (Long), the idea 
being perhaps causing blood to flow, or perhaps sputtering away the life, 
though this pari of the sign is nearly the same as that sometimes used for 
the discharge of a gun or arrow. 

/ '( a, ■. i oward. 

I. Both hands, with lingers turned inward opposite the lower ribs, then 
broughl upward with a tremulous motion, as if to represent the common 
id.-a dt' die heart rising up to the throat Dunbar.) 

•_'. [lead stooped down, and arm thrown up quickly as if to protect it. 
/ 

3. Fingers and thumb of right hand, which droops downward, closed 
oint i" represent a heart, violently and repeatedly beaten against the 



PEAK— WOMAN— QUANTITY . 

left breast just over the heart to imitate palpitation. | Titchh The 

Sioux use the same sign without closing the fingers to represent a heart. 
( McChesney.) 

The French deaf-mutes, besides beating the heart, add a nervous hack- 
ward shrinking with both hands. Our deaf-mutes omit the beating of the 
heart, except tor excessive terror. 

4. Point forward several times with the index, followed by the remain- 
ing fingers, each time drawing the index back l Wied), as if impossible to 
keep the man to the front. 

5. May lie signified by making the sign lor a squaw, if the one in fear 
lie a, man or boy. ( Lemly. | 

6. Cross the arms over the breast,, fists closed, how the head over the 
crossed arms, lint turn it a little to the left. (Dorsey I 

Woman has four signs; one expressing the mamma', one indicating 
shortness as compared with man, and the two most common severally indi- 
cating the longer hair or more flowing dress. The hair is sometimes indi- 
cated by a motion with the right hand as though drawing a comb through 
the entire length of the hair on that side of the head (McChesney); and 
sometimes by turning the right hand about the ear, as if putting the hair 
behind it. (Dodge.) The deaf-mutes generally mark the line of the bon- 
net-string down the cheek. 

Quantity, many, much. Six wholly distinct executions and several con- 
ceptions. 

1. The flat of the right hand patting the back of the left several time.-, 
proportioned in number to the quantity. {Dunbar,) Simple repetil 

2. Clutching at the air several times with both hands. | Kohl Same 
idea of repetition, more objective. This sign may easily be confounded 
with the mode of counting or enumeration by presenting the ten digits. 

.'J. Hands and arms passed cnrvilinearly outward and downward as it 
forming a large globe, then hands closed and elevated as if something were 
grasped in each, and held up as high as the lace. | Long) 

4. Hands held scoop-fashion, palms toward each oilier, about two 
apart, at the height of the lower ribs, finger-ends downward; then with 
a, diving motion, as if scooping Lip small articles loan a sack or barrel, 



L . j I. MYSELF— YES. 

bring the hands nearly together, fingers closed, as if holding a number of 
the small objects in each band, and up again to the height of the breast. 
The Sioux make substantially the same sign, with the difference 
that they begin about a fool and a half from the ground and bring the hands 
in. to the height of the breast. I McChesney.) 

;, Both hands closed, brought up in a curved motion toward each 
other to the level of the neck. I Titchkemdtski.) Idea of fullness. 

G Move ili'- two open hands toward each other and slightly upward 
!l the action of forming or delineating a heap. 

/. my ■ 'i. firsl personal pronoun. 

Represented in some tribes by motions of the right hand upon the 
breast, the hand sometimes clinched and struck repeatedly on the breast — 
or the fingers or the index alone placed upon it. < >thers touch the nose-tip 
with the index, or lay it upon the ridge of the nose, the end resting between 
the eyes. 

Some deaf-mutes push the forefinger against the pit of the stomach, 
others against the breast, and others point it to the neck for this personality. 

) -. affirmative, '"it is so." 

i Ine ut' the signs is s ewhal like " truth," hut the forefinger proceeds 

hi forward from the breast instead of the mouth, and when at the end 
of its course it seems gently to strike something, as if the subject were at 
an end i Long) ; no further discus-ion, "'nulf said," as is the vulgar phrase 
jreement. Another: Quick motion of the right hand forward from the 
mouth, first position about six inches from the mouth and final as far again 
away. In the first position the index i- extended, the others closed, in the 
final thc> index is loosely closed, thrown in thai position as the hand is moved 
forward, as though I king something with it. Palm of hand cuit. (JDeffen- 

Others wave both hands straight forward from the face (Burton), 
which may he compared with the forward nod common over most of the 
world lor assent, bill that gesture is not universal, as the New Zcala : rs 
elevate the head and chin, and the 'Turks shake it like our negative. 

With others, again, the right hand is elevated to the level and in front 

ot the shoulder, the first two fingers somewhal extended, thumb resting 

•' 'In- middle finger, and then a sudden motion in a curve forward 



YES— GOOD— BAD. ■_,;, 

and downward. I Titchkemdtski.) As this corresponds nearly with the Bign 
made for "sit" by the same tribes, its conception may be that of resting 
upon or settling a question. 

Still another variant is where the righi hand, with the forefinger 
(only) extended, ami pointing forward, is held before and near the chest. 
It is then moved forward one or two feet, usually with a slighl curve down- 
ward. ( Mafflu ws. ) 

Good. > s ix diverse signs. 

1. The hand held horizontally, back upward, descril.es with the arm 
a horizontal curve outward. {Long.) 

2. Simple horizontal movement of the right hand from the b 
(Wied.) These signs may convey the suggestion of level— no difficulty— 
and are nearly identical with one of those tor ■■content." "glad." Tin- 
first of them is like our motion of benediction, hut may more suggestively 
be compared with several of the above signs for "yes," and in opposition to 
several of those below for "bad" ami "no," showing the idea of acceptance 
or selection of objects presented, instead of their rejection. 

3. With the right hand, palm down, fingers to the left, thumb touching 
the breast, move the hand straight to the front and slightly upward. 
(Brisbiu.) The Sioux make the same sign without the final upward motion. 
(McChesney.) 

4. Wave the right hand from the mouth, extending the thumb from 
the index and closing the other three fingers. (Burton.) 

5. The right hand, fingers pointing to the left, on a level with mouth. 
thumb inward, suddenly moved with curve outward, so as to present the 
palm to the person addressed. (TitcMemdtski.) 

These last signs appear to he connected with a pleasanl taste in the 
mouth, as is the sign of the French and our deaf-mute, waving thence the 
hand, hack upward, with fingers straight and joined, in a forward and 
downward curve. The same gesture with hand sidewise is theirs and ours 
for general assent : " very well !" 

6. Move the right hand, palm down, over the blanket, righi ami left 
several times. ( Dorsey. I 

Bad. The signs st common consist mainly in smartly throwing oul 

the dexter fingers as if sprinkling water, or snapping all the lingers from the 



BAD -< ONTEMPT— UNDERSTAND— THINK. 

thumb. Tins may be compared with the deaf-mute sign of flipping an imagi- 
objecl between the thumb-nail and the forefinger, denoting something 
small iptible The motion of snapping a finger either on or from 

: - nol only of large medern prevalence in civilization, but 
is the contemporary statue of Sardanapalus at Anchiale. 
hands open, palms turned in, move one hand toward and 
the other from the body, then i Another less forcible but equally 

ture for had is closing the hand and then opening while lower- 
ing it, as if dropping out the contents I Wied; McChesney); "not worth keep- 
ing." It becomes again more forcible in another variant, viz: the hand closed, 
back toward and near the breast, then as the forearm is suddenly extended 
the hand is opened and the fingers separated from each other. (Matthews.) 
This is the casting away of a supposed object, and the same authority con- 
it with contempt by reporting thai the sign for the latter is the same, 
only still more forcibly made. Another sign for contempt, and which 
is the highest degree of insult, is as follows: The right hand is shut or 
clinched and held drawn in toward the chest and on a level with it, with 
the back of the hand down, and the shut fingers and thumb up, and the 
expression of contempt is given by extending out the hand and arm directly 
in fronl of the body, at the same time opening the thumb and fingers wide 
and apart, so thai at the termination of the motion the arm is nearly 
ded, and the thumb and fingers all radiating out as it were from the 
center of the hand, and the palm of the hand still pointing upward. (67/- 
flllan.) Tin- Neapolitans, to express contempt, blow towards the person or 

thing referred to. The deaf-mutes preserve the connection of "bad" and 
"taste" by brushing from the side of the month. 

rstand, know, is very variously expressed by manipulations in 
which the dosc, ear, chin, mouth, and breast are selected as objective 
I"" 1 "-' :il) the motions being appropriate. Think or guess is also diversely 
indicated. Sometimes the forefinger is simply drawn sharply across the 
breast from lefl to right. (Burton.) Some hit the chest with closed fist, 
thumb over the list. Again, the righl list is held with the thumb between 
the eyes and propelled front and downward We, for show of thought, rest 
•I"- lor. linger on the forehead. Then- is also a less intelligible sign, in 
which the righl hand, fingers and thumb loosely closed, index crooked and 



ANIMALS— DEER. 27 

slightly extended, is dipped over toward and suddenly forward from the 
left shoulder, i Titclikemdtski.) All the gestures of deaf-mutes relating to 
intelligence are connected with the forehead. 

Animals are expressed pantominaically by s e characteristic of their 

motion or form, and the Indian nomographers generally seem to have hit 
upon similar signs for tin- several animals; but to this rule there are marked 
exceptions, especially in the signs for the deer and the dog. For the deer six 

signs are noted : 

1. Right hand extended upward by the right ear. with a quiet puff from 
the mouth ( Dunbar i, perhaps in allusion to the fleel escape <>n hearing noise. 

2. Make several pa-s ( . s with the hand before the face, i II' 

3. With the right hand in front of body on a level with the shoulder, 
and about eighteen inches from it, palm down, make the quick ap-and-dow a 
motion with all the fingers held loosely together, as of the motion ol 
deer's tail when running. The wrist is fixed in making this sign. It is 
very expressive to any one who has ever seen the surprised deer in motion. 
(McChesney.) 

4. Forefinger of right hand extended vertically, hack toward breast, 
then turned from side to side, to imitate the motion of the animal n 
walking at leisure. (Long.) 

5. Both hands, fingers irregularly outspread at the sides,,!' the head, 
to imitate the outspread horns. (TitchemdtsM.) This sign is made by our 

deaf-mutes. 

6. Same position, confined to the thumb and two fust fingers of each 

hand. (Burton ) 

The above signs all appear to he used lor the animal generically, hut 
the following are separately reported tor two f the species: 

Black-tailed deer [< ariacus warm/Is (Say), Cray]. 

1. Make several passes with the hand before the face, then indicate a 

tail. {Wit 

2 Hold the left hand pendant a short distance in front ol the chest, 
thumb inward, finger ends approximated to each other as much as possible 
e withthefirstam l fourth drawn together under the second and third). 
Then close the right hand around the left palm to back, and coven: 



l\M \\< l.s <>i PREVALENT SKINS. 

of the left-hand fingers) and draw them downward, still closed, until 
it is entirely drawn away. This sign seems to represent the act of smooth- 
ing down the fusiform tuft al the end of the animal's tail. ( Matthew . | 

White-tailed deer [Cariacus virginianus macrurus I Etaf.), Coues]. 

Hold the right hand upright before the chest, nil fingers but the index 
l„. ;,,..• bent, tin' palm being turned .-is much to the front .-is possible. Then 

■: .,. band from side to side a few times rather slowly. 'The arm is 
moved scarcely, or nol at all. This sign represents the motion of the deer's 
tail. ( Mntlhi ws.) 

For dog, one of the signs gives the two forefingers slightly opened, 
drawn* horizontally across the breast from right to left. {Burton.) This 
would not be intelligible without knowledge of the fact that before the 
introduction of the horse, and even yet, the dog has been used to draw the 
tent-poles in moving camp, and the sign represents the trail. Indians less 
nomadic, who built more substantial lodges, and to whom the material for 
poles was less precious than on the plains, would not perhaps have compre- 
hended this sign, and the more general one is the palm lowered as if to 
stroke gently in a line conforming to the animal's head and neck. It is 
abbreviated by simply lowering the hand to the usual height of the wolfish 
aboriginal breed i Wied; Titchkemdtski), and suggests the animal par excel- 
lent domesticated by the Indians and made a companion. The French 
and American deaf-mutes more specifically express the dog by snapping 
ill" fingers and then patting the thigh, or by patting the knee and imi- 
tating barking with the lips. 

INSTANCES OF PREVALENT SKINS. 

\inoiio' the signs that are found generally current and nearly identical 
ma) be noted that for horse, made by the tore and middle finger of the right 
hand placed h\ some astraddle of the left forefinger and by others of the 

oi tin left hand, the animal being considered at first as only service- 
able for riding and not for draft. Colonel Dodge mentions, however, that 
these signs are used only by Indians to white men, their ordinary sign for 

being made by drawing the righl hand from left to right across the 
bod) about the heart, all the fingers being closed excepting the index. It 



EOESE— SAME— HE— SURPRISE— SUN. 29 

is to be observed that this sign lias a strong resemblance to the one given 
above by Captain Burton for dog, and may have reference to the girth. It 
is still more easily confused with Captain Burton's "think, guess". The 
French deaf-mutes add to the straddling of the index the motion of a trot. 
The Utes have a special sign for horse — the first and little fingers of the 
right hand, palm down, extended forward, the halls of the remaining finders 
falling down and resting upon the end of the thumb, presenting a sugges- 
tion of the animal's head and ears. Our deaf-mutes indicate the ears, fol- 
lowed by straddling the left hand by the tore and middle fingers of the right. 
Same, similar, is made not only among our tribes generally, bul bj these 
all over the world, and by deaf-mutes, by extending the two forefingers 
together side by side, hacks upward, sometimes moved together slightly 
forward. When held at rest in this position, companion and the tie of fel- 
lowship, what in days of chivalry was styled "brothers in arms," can be 
indicated, and, as a derivative also, husband The French and American 
deaf-mutes use this sign, preceded by one showing the sex, for "brother" 
or "sister." 

The most remarkable variant from the sign as above described which is 
reported to be used by our Indians, is as follows: Extend the fore and mid- 
dle finger of the right hand, pointing upward, thumb crossed over the other 
fingers, which arc' (dosed. Move the hand downward and forward. I Di 

An opposition to the more common sign above mentioned is given, 
though not generally reported, for he, or another person, by placing one 
Straight forefinger over the ether, nearly touching, and then separated 
with a moderately rapid motion. ( Dunbar.) The deaf-mutes lor -he" point 
the thumb over the right shoulder. 

The principal motion lor surprise, wonder, consists in placing the right 
hand before the month, which is open, or supposed so to be— a gesture 
seemingly involuntary with us, and which also appears in the Egyptian 

hieroglyphs. 

The general sign lor sun, when it is given as distinguished fr d 

made by forming a' circle with the thumb and forefinger raised to the east 
or ahum the track of the orb-is often abbreviated by simplj crookmg the 
elevated forefinger into an arc of a circle, which would more naturallj be 



MOON SIGHT - [NQUITtY. 

interpreted as the crescent n n. It appears that some tribes that retain 

the full descriptive circle for the sun do form a distinguishing crescent for 
,| M moon, but with the thumb and forefinger, and for greater discrimination 
[oil wiih the sign for night An interesting variant of the sign for 
,, . ,. reported as follows: The partly bent forefinger and thumb 
..(' the right hand are brought together at their tips so as to represent a 
circle; and with these digits next to the lace, the hand is held up toward the 
skv from one to two feel from the e} e and in such a manner that the glance 
may be directed through the opening. (Mattliews.) The same authority 
the sign for "moon" as thai for "sun," except that the tips of the finger 
and thumb, instead of being opposed, are approximated so as to represent a 
nt. This is not preceded by the sign for night, which, with some 
iional additions, is the crossing of both horizontally outspread palms, 
right above left, in trout of the body, the conception being covering, shade, 
and consequent obscmity. With a slight differentiation, darkness is repre- 
sented, and with another, forget, forgotten, that is, darkness in the memory. 
ry, question. What? Which? When? 
This is generally denoted by the right hand held upward, palm upward, 
and directed toward the person interrogated, and rotated two or three times 
When this motion is made, as among some tribes, with the thumb 
near the face, it mighl be mistaken for the derisive, vulgar gesture called 
"taking a sight," "donner tin pied de nez," descending to our small boys 

fr antiquity. The separate motion of the lingers in the vulgar gesture 

as used in our eastern cities is, however, more nearly correlated with the 
Indian sign for fool It m;i\ be noted that the Latin "sagax," from which 
is derived "sagacity," was chief!} used to denote the keen scent of dogs, so 
there is a relation established between the nasal organ and wisdom or its 
absence, and thai "suspendere naso" was a classic phrase for hoaxing. The 
Italian expressions "restare con un palmo di naso," " con tanto di naso," 
uentioned 1>\ the Canon De Jorio, refer to the same vulgar gesture in 
which the lac is supposed to be thrust forward sillily. The same rotation 
upon the wrist, with the. index and middle finger diverged over the heart, 
ir Indians means specifically uncertainty, indecision, "more than one 
hearl for a purpose," and a variant of it appears in one of the signs for "J 



[NQUIRY— FOOL— NO. ;;| 

dorii know." The special inquiry "Do you know?" is reported as follows: 
Shake the right hand in front of the lace, a little to the right, the whole arm 
elevated s«. as to throw the hand even with the face and the forearm stand- 
ing almost perpendicular; principal motion with hand, slight motion of 
forearm, palm outward, i Deffi nbaugh.) 

The Indian sign for " inquiry" is far superior to that of the French 
deaf-mutes, which is the part of the French shrug with the hunched shoulders 
omitted. 

A sign lor a special form of inquiry as to the tribe to which tin- person 
addressed belongs is to pass the right hand from left to right across the 
which is answered by tin- appropriate tribal sign. : /' 

Instead of a direct question the Utes in sign-conversation use a negative 
form, e.g., to ask "Where is your mother.'" would he rendered "Mother — 
your — I — see — not." 

Fool, foolish. The prevailing gesture is a finger pointed to the forehead 
and rotated circularly — "rattle-brained." The only reported variance is 
where the sign for "man" is followed by shaking the lingers held down- 
ward, without reference to the head — the idea of looseness simply. French 
deaf-mutes shake the hands above the head after touching it with the index. 
No, negative. The right hand — though in the beginning of the sign 
held in various positions — is generally either waved before the lace (which 
is the sign of our deaf-mutes for emphatic negative I, aj if refusing to accept 
the idea or statement presented, or pushed sidewise to the right from either 
the breast or face, as if dismissing it or setting it aside One of tin- 
given for the Pah-Utes by Natshes of oscillating the index before the face 
from right to left is substantially the same as one reported from Naples bj 1 >E 
JOBIO. This maybe compared with our shaking of the head in denial: hut 
that gesture is not SO universal in the Old World as is popularly supposed, 
lor the ancient Greeks, followed by the modern Turks and rustic Italians, 
threw the head back, instead of shaking it, for No. A sign differing from 
all the above is by making a quick motion of the open hand from the moulh 
forward, palm toward month, h The Egyptian negative 

hieroglyph is clearly the gesture of both hands, palms down, waved apart 
horizontally and apparen.lv at the level of the elbow, between winch 



32 LIE l IM HI OFFSPEING. 

. 11M | t |„. m L tive particle "ma" given by Landa there is a strong 

eoincidem 

/ .. falsehood, is almost universally expressed by some figurative varia- 
tion i] t], e generic theme "I' a forked or double tongue — "two different 

_" — in which ili'- firsl t \\ . > fingers on the right hand separate from the 
mouth. One reported sign precedes the latter motion by the right hand 
touching the breasl over the heart. (Hoffman.') Another instance given, 
however, is when the index is extended from the two corners of the mouth 
successivelv. [Ealy.) Still another is by passing the hand from right to 
left close by ami across the mouth, with the firsl two fingers of the hand 
opened, thumb ami otherfingers closed. ( Dodge; Ndtslies.) A further variant 
employed by the [Jtes is made h\ closing the right hand and placing the tips 
of the firsl two fingers upon the hall of the extended thumb, and snapping 
them forward straight ami separated while passing the hand from the mouth 
forward ami to the left. In the same tribe the index is more commonly 
moved, held straighl upward ami forward, alternately toward the left and 
right front. " 'Talk two ways." 'Dull/, true, is naturally contradistinguished 
by tli^ use of a single finger, the index, pointing straight from the mouth 
forw ard and sometimes upward — "( me tongue; speech straight to the front; 
no talk behind a man"' Sometimes, however, the breast is the initial point, 
as in the French deaf-mute sign for "sincere." The deaf-mutes also gesture 
"truth" by moving ^ne finger straight from the lips — "straight-forward 
speaking" — but distinguish "lie" by moving the linger to one side — "side- 
wi\ - speaking." 

ring or descendant, child in filial relation — not simply as young 
humanity — is generally denoted by a slightly varied dumb show of issu- 
ance from tin- loins, the line traced sometimes showing a close diagnosis of 
parturition. This is particularly noticeable in the following description: 
Place the left band in front of the body, a little to the right, the palm 
downward and slightl) arched; pass the extended right hand downward, 
forward, and upward, forming a short curve underneath the left. {Hoffman.) 
'I'll- sign, witli additions, means ••father, - ' "mother," "grandparent," but its 
expurgated form among the French deaf-mutes means " parentage " gener- 
ically, tor wlmh term there is a special sign reported from our Indians by 



POSSESSION— STEAL— TRADE. 



33 



only one authority, viz: Place the hand bowl-shaped over the righl breast, 
as if grasping a pap. | Bodge.) It is not understood how this can be di 
guished from one of the signs above mentioned lor "woman." 

Possession, mine, my property. The essential of this com n sign is 

clinching- the right hand held at the level of the head and moving it gently 
forward, clearly the grasping and display of property. None of tin- d, af- 
mute signs to express "possession, ownership," known to the writer, resem- 
ble this or are as graphic. Our deaf-mutes press an imaginary object to 
the breast with the right hand. 

Steal. The prevalent delineation is by holding the left arm horizontally 
across the body and seizing from under the left list an imaginary objeel 
with the right hand (Burton), implying concealment and the transportation 
that forms part of the legal definition of larceny. This sign is also made 
by our deaf-mutes. Sometimes the fingers of the right hand are hooked, 
as if grabbing or tearing. (Titclikematsld.) Another sign is reported in 
which the left arm is partly extended and held horizontally so that the left 
hand will he palm downward, a foot or so in front of the chest. Then, 
with the right hand in front, a motion is made as if something were grasped 
deftly in the ringers and carried rapidly along under the lefl arm to the 
axilla. (Mattheics.) The specialty of horse-theft is indicated by the panto- 
mime of cutting a lariat. {Burton. ) 

Trade, barter, i is very commonly denoted by n sign the root 

of which is the movement of the two fiat hands or the two forefingers past 
each other, so that one takes the place before held by the other, the i 
conceit of exchange. One description is as foil iws: The hands, hacks for- 
ward, are held as index-hands pointing upward, the elbows being fully 
bent. Each hand is then simultaneously with the other, moved to the 
opposite shoulder, so that the forearms cross one another almost at right 
angles. (Matthews.) Another: Pass the hands in front of the body at the 
height of the waist, all lingers cl pi die index-fingers. D 

laugh.) This is also made by the Comancl Bannocks, and 

Umatillas. (Ndtshes.) Another instance is reported where the first two fin- 
gers of the right hand cross those of the left, both being slightly spread. 
(Hoffman.) Our deaf-mutes use the same gesture as first above mentioned 

:: s i 






I • I « i\l. INTEREST. 



with ,) l( . |, J An invitation to a general or systematic barter or 

.. inrl from ,„„. transaction, is expressed by repeated taps or the 

The rough resemblance of this sign to that for "cut- 

:,„„.,! mistakes as to its origin. It is reported by Captain 

ption of one smart trader cutting into the profits of 

diamond cul diamond." The trade sign is, on the plains, often 

-vocally named Shwop— a legacy from the 

re, who were tin- first Caucasians met. Generally, however, the ges- 

desi nating the hat or head-covering of civilization. 

This ili-- French deaf-mutes apply to all men, as distinct from women. 

[NSTANt ES OF SIGNS SAVING SPECIAL INTEREST. 

A few sirnis have been selected which are not remarkable either for 
general or limited acceptance, bul are of interest from special conception 
uliar figuration. 

The relation of brothers, sisters, and of brother and .sitter, children of 

the same mother, is signified by putting the two first finger tips in the 

mouth, denoting the nourishment taken from the same breast. (Burton; 

I >im- of the signs for child or infant is to place the thumb and fin- 

of the right hand againsl the lips, then drawing; them away and bringing 
the right hand against the Left fore-arm, as if holding an infant (Dunbar.) 
The Cistercian monks, vowed to silence, and the Egyptian hieroglyphers, 
notably in the designation of Horns, their dawn-god, used the finger in or 
on tin- lips lor "child." It has been conjectured in the last instance that 

esture implied, not the mode of taking nourishment, but inability to 
This conjecture, however, was only made to explain the 
blunder of the Greeks, who saw in the hand placed connected with the 
mouth in the hieroglyph of Horns (the) son, " I Ior-(p)-chrot," the gesture 
familiar to themseh OS of a linger on the lips to express "silence," and so mis- 
taking both tlie name and the characterization, invented the God of Silence, 
1 larpokrales. A careful examination of all the linear hieroglyphs given by 
I Hctionnaire Ggyptien ), shows that the linger or the hand to 
the mouth of an adult I whose posture is always distinct from that of a child) 
is always in connection with the positive ideas of voice, mouth, speech. 



DESTROYED—DONE— GLAD— DISCONTEOT :;;, 

writing, eating, drinking, &c, and never with the negative idea of sili 
The special character for "child" always has the above-mentioned pari wi- 
the sign with reference to nourishmenl from the breast. An uninstructed 

deaf-mute, as related by Mr. Denison of the Columbia Institution, invented, 
to express " sister," first the sign tor "female," made by the half-cL 
hands with the ends of fingers touching the breasts, followed by the index 
in the mouth. 

Destroyed, all gone, no more. 

The hands held horizontal and the palms nibbed together two or three 
times circularly; the right hand is then carried oil' from the other in a short 
horizontal curve. (Long.) "Rubbed out." This resembles the Edinburgh 
and our deaf-mute sign for " forgive " or " clemency," the rubbing out of 
offense. Several shades of meaning under this head an- designated by 
varying gestures "If something of little importance has been destroyed by 
accident or design, the fact is communicated by indicating the thing spoken 
of, and then slightly striking the palms and open fingers of die hands 
together, as if brushing dust off of them. If something has been destroyed 
by force the sign is as if breaking a stick in the two hands, throwing the 
pieces away, and then dusting the hands as before. The amount of force 
used and the completeness of the destruction are shown by greater or I • 
vigor of action and facial expression." (Bodge.) 

Done, finished. The hands placed edges up and down, parallel to each 
other, right hand outward, which is drawn hack as if cutting something. 
(Dunbar.) An end left after cutting is suggested; perhaps our colloquial 
" cut short." The French and our deaf-mutes give a cutting motion down- 
ward, with the right hand at a right angle to the let':. 

Glad, pleased, content. Wave the open hand outward from the breasl 
(Burton), to express heart at ease— " bosom's lord sits lightly on its thro 
Another gesture, perhaps noting a higher degree of happiness, is to rais< 
the right hand from the breast in serpentine curves to above the I. 
(Wied.) "Heart beats high." Another: Extend both hands outward, 
palms turned downward, ami make a sign exactly similar to the way women 
smooth a bed in making it. (Holt.) " Smooth and easy." 

Dissatisfaction, discontent, is naturally contrasted by holding the index 



,,,,,, i rONE PRISONER. 

. ... , the [, e arl and rotating the wrist several times, indicat- 

sturbance of the organ, whirl: our aborigines, like modern Europeans, 

j as ti ie se a< oi fections and emotions, not selecting 

the liver or stomach as other peoples bave done with greater physiological 

•|',, / '. is graphically portrayed by placing the right hand 

the clothing of the left breast, or covering the right hand, fingers 
hooked, by tin- left, which is flat, palm downward, and held near the body. 
'I"li.' same gestures i < t. n 

. or friendship, is s (times shown by placing the tips of the two 

first lino-el's "|' the right hand against the mouth and elevated upward and 
outward to mimic the expulsion of smok< — "we two smoke together." 
It is also often rendered by the joined right and left 
hands, the lingers being sometimes interlocked, hut others simply hook 
the two forefingers together. Our deaf-mutes interlock the forefingers for 
14 friendship," clasp the hand.-, right uppermost, for "marriage," and make 
the last sign, repeated with the left hand uppermost, for "peace." The 
idea of union or linking is obvious. It is, however, noticeable that while 
this ceremonial gesture is common and ancient, the practice of shaking 
hand- on meeting, now the annoying etiquette of the Indians in their inter- 
vvith whites, was never used by (hem between each other, and is 
clearly a foreign importation. Their fancy for affectionate greeting Was in 
giving a pleasant bodily sensation by nabbing each other's breasts, arms, 

and st achs. The senseless and inconvenient custom of shaking hands is, 

indeed, by no means general throughout the world, and in the extent to 
which it prevails in the United States is a matter of national opprobrium 

'I'll.- profession of peace, coupled with invitation, is often made from a 

ice by the acted spreading of a real or imaginary robe or blanket — . 
'• cot I it down." 

The sign for stone has an archaeological significance — the right fist 
being struck repeatedly upon the left palm, as would he instinctive when a, 
.-tone was the only hammer. 

is n graphic picture. The forefinger and thumb of the left 
hand are held in the form of a semicircle opening toward and near the 



CONCLUSION PRESENTED. 

breast, and the righl forefinger, representing the prisoner, is pined up, 
within the curve and passed from one side to another, in order to show thai 
it is not permitted to pass out. {Long!) 

Soft is ingeniously expressed by firsl striking the open left 
oral times with the hack of the right, and then striking will, the righl the 
back of the left, restoring the supposed yielding substance to its former 

shape. 

Without further multiplying examples, the conclusion is presented thai 

the gesture-signs among our Indians show no uniformity in detail, the 
variety in expression among them and in their comparison with tho 
deaf-mutes and transatlantic mimes being in itself of psychological interest. 
The generalization of Tylor that " gesture-language is substantially the 
same among savage tribes all over the world" must he understood, indeed 
would he so understood from his remarks in another connection, as refer 
ring to their common use of signs and of signs formed on the same prin- 
ciples, but not of the same signs to express the same ideas, even "substan- 
tially," however indefinitely that dubious adverb may lie used. 

GESTURE- SPEECH UNIVERSAL AS AN AKT. 

The attempt l<> convey meaning !>;/ signs is, however, universal anion-- the 
Indians of the plains, and those still comparatively unchanged by civiliza- 
tion, as is its successful execution as an art, which, however it may bave 
commenced as an instinctive mental process, has been cultivated, and con- 
sists in actually pointing out objects in sight not only for designation, hut 
for application and predication, and in suggesting others to the mind by 
action and the airy forms produced by action. 

In no other part of the thoroughly explored world has there been 
spread over so vast a space so small a number of individuals divided by 
so many linguistic and dialectic boundaries as in North America. Many 
wholly distinct tongues have for a Ion- indefinite time been confined to a 
few scores of speakers, verbally incomprehensible to all others on the 
of the earth who did not, from some rarely operating motive, laboriously 
;(( quire „,,;,. language. Ei en when the American race, so sty led. flourished 
in the: greatest population of which we have any evidence (al least accord 



SIGN-LANGUAGE AS AN INDIAN ART. 

in" to the published views of the present writer, which seem to have; been 
,rably received I, the immense number of languages and dialects still pre- 
d, or known by early recorded fragments to h existed, so sub- 

divided i' that bul the dwellers in a very few villages could talk together 
with case, and all were interdistributed among unresponsive vernaculars, 
to the other being bar-bar-ous in every meaning of the term. It is, 
liowevi i. noticeable thai the three greal families of Iroquois, Algonkin, and 
Muskoki, when met by their first visitors, do not appear to have often im- 
pressed the latter with their reliance upon gesture-language to the same 
extent as has always been reported of the aborigines now and formerly 
found farther inland. It' this absence of report ai'ose from the absence of 
the practice and not from tion of observation, an explanation may 

be su tli i act that among those families there were more 

people dwelling near together in sociological communities, of the same 
speech, though with dialectic peculiarities, than became known later in the 
later West, and not being nomadic, their intercourse with strange tribes 
was less individual and conversational. 

The use ol igns, continued, if not originating, in necessity for 

communication with the outer world, became entribally convenient from the 

din occupation of all savages, depending largely 

ilthy approach to game, and from the sole form of their military 

— to surprise an enemy. In the still expanse of virgin forests, and 

ially in the boundless solitudes of the great plains, a slight sound can 

bo heard over a vasl area, thai of the human voice being from its rarity the 

most startling, so that it is now, as it probably has been for centuries, a 

common precaution for members of a hunting or war party not to speak 

her when on such expeditions, communicating exclusively by signs. 

iquired liabil also exhibits itself not only in formal oratory, but in 

impassioned or emphatic conversation. 

This domestic as well as foreign exercise for generations in the gesture- 

h naturally produced great skill both in expression and reception, 

to be measurably independent of any prior mutual understanding, or 

ystem of signals is called preconcert. Two accomplished army 

signaltsts r.wi, after sufficient trial, communicate without either of them learn- 



RESULT l\ MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING. 



39 



ing the code in which the other was educated and which lie had before prac- 
ticed, one being mutually devisodfortheoccasion, and thosospocitillj designed 
for secrecy are often deciphered. So, if any one of the more approximately 
conventional signs is nol quickly comprehended, an Indian skilled in the 
principle of signs resorts to another expression of his flexible art, peril 
reproducing the gesture unabbreviated and made more graphic, perhaps 
presenting either the same or another conception or quality of the same 
object or idea by an original portraiture. The same tribe has. indeed, in 
some instances, as appears by the collected lists, a choir,- already furnished 
by tradition or importation, or recent invention or all together, of several 
signs for the same thought-object. Thus there are produced synonyms as 
well as dialects in sign-language. 

The general result is that two intelligent mimes seldom fail of mutual 
understanding, their attention being exclusively directed to the expression 
of thoughts by the means of comprehension and reply equally possessed \>\ 
both, without the mental confusion of conventional sounds only intelligible 
to one. The Indians who have been shown over the civilized Eas1 havealso 
often succeeded in holding intercourse, by means of their invention and 
application of principles, in what may lie called the voiceless mother utter- 
ance, with white deaf-mutes, who surely have no semiotic code more aearly 
connected with that attributed to the plain-roaraers than is derived from 
their common humanity. When they met together they were found to pur- 
sue the same course as that noticed at the meeting together of deaf-mutes 
who were either not instructed in any methodical dialect or who had received 
such instruction by different methods. They seldom agreed in the signs at 
first presented, but soon understood them, and finished by adopting some 
in mutual compromise, which proved to be those most strikingly appro- 
priate, graceful, and convenient, but there still re in some cases a 
plurality of fitting signs for the same idea or obj set. < >n one of the most 
interesting of these occasions, at the Pennsylvania [nstitution for the Deaf 
and Dumb, in 1873, it was remarked that the signs of the deaf-mutes were 
much more readily understood by the Indians, who were Absaroki or 
Crows, Arapahos, and Cheyennes, than were their, by the deaf-mutes, and 
that th ' e latter greatly excelled in pantomimic effect Thi • need not bo sur- 



40 INDIANS CONVERSING WITH DEAF-MUTES. 

onsidered that whal is to the Indian a mere adjunct or 
nplishmenl is fo the deaf-mute the natural mode of utterance, and 
ter freedom from the trammel of translating words 
i„t action — instead of acting the ideas themselves — when, the sound of 
words being unknown, they remain still as they originated, but another 
kind i en after the art of reading is acquired, and do not become 

untities as with us. 

I; is to be remarked thai Indians when brought to the East have 
shown the greal are in mei f-mutes, precisely as travelers 

in a foreign country are rejoiced to meet persons speaking their language, 
with whom they can hold direct communication without the tiresome and 
iiiuu of an interpreter. A Sandwich Islander, a Chi- 
, and the Africans from the slaver Amistad have, in published instances, 
visited our deal-mute institutions with the same result of free and pleasura- 
ble intercourse, and an English deaf-mute had no difficulty in conversing 
with Laplanders. It appears, also, on the authority of Sibscota, whose 
treatise was published in 1670, that Cornelius Haga, ambassador of the 
United Pro i the Sublime Porte, found th*e Sultan's mutes to have 

lished a language among themselves in which they could discourse 
with a speaking interpreter, a degree of ingenuity interfering with the 
objecl of their selection as slaves unable to repeat conversation. 

SUGGESTIONS TO OBSERVERS. 

The most important suggestion to persons interested in the collection 
,is is that they shall not too readily abandon the attempt to discover 
recollections of them even among tribes long exposed to Caucasian influence 
and officially segregated from others. 

During the last week a missionary wrote that he was concluding a con- 
siderable vocabulary of signs finally procured from the Ponkas, although 
after residing anion-- them for years, with thorough familiarity with their 
ifter special and intelligent exertion to obtain some of their 
turedanguage, he had two months ago reported it to be entirely 
\ similar reporl was made by two missionaries among the 
(, J il,u I ' other trustworthy authorities have furnished a list of signs 



SURVIVAL IN CONVERSATIONAL GESTURES. H 

obtained from that tribe. Further discouragement came from an Indian 

agent giving the decided statement, after four years of intercourse with the 
Pah-Utes, that no such thing as a communication by signs was known or 
even remembered bytbem, which, however, was less difficult to bear because 
on the day of the receipt of that well-intentioned missive some officers of 
the Bureau of Ethnology were actually talking in signs with a delegation 
of that very tribe of Indians then in Washington, from one of whom the 
Story hereinafter appearing was received. The difficulty in collecting signs 
may arise because Indians are often provokingly reticent about tl 
habits and traditions; because they do not distinctly comprehend what is 
sought to be obtained, and because sometimes the art, abandoned in 
end, only remains in the memories of a few persons influenced by special 
circumstances or individual fancy. 

In this latter regard a comparison may be made with the old science 
of heraldry, once of practical use and a necessary part of a liberal educa- 
tion, of which hardly a score of persons in the Unite. 1 States have any hut 
the vague knowledge that it once existed; yet the united memories of those 
persons could, in the absence of records, reproduce all essential points on 
the subject. 

Even when the specific practice of the sign-language has been generally 
discontinued for more than one generation, either from the adoption of a 
jargon or from the common use of the tongue of the conquering English, 
French, or Spanish, some of the gestures formerly employed as substitutes 
for words may survive as a customary accompaniment to oratory or impas- 
sioned conversation, and, when ascertained, should be carefully noted. An 
example, among many, may be found in the fact that the now civilized 
Muskoki or Creeks, as mentioned by Rev. II. F. Buckneb, when speaking 
of the height of children or women, illustrate their words by holding their 
hands at the proper elevation, palm up; but when (lescrihing the hei 
"soulless" animals or inanimate objects, they hold the palm downward. 
This when correlated with the distinctive signs of other Indians, is an mter- 
estinc case of the survival of a practice which, so far as yd reported, the 
oldesl men of the tribe now living only renumber to have on 
[ t is probable that a collection of such distinctiv ^n the 



,_. isKuons to vvmoii collectors ai;k liable. 

I in8 would reproduce enough of their ancient system to 
i on if the pcrsistenl enquirer did not in his search discover 
Komo of its surviving custodians even among Chahta or Cheroki, Iroquois 
or Abenaki, Klamath or Nuika. 

Anothei recommendation is prompted by the fad that in the collection 
and description of Indian signs there is danger lesl the civilized understand- 
ing of the original c ieption may be mistaken or forced. The liability to 

error i- much increased when the collections are not taken directly from the 
Indians themselves, bul are given as obtained at second-hand from white 
traders, trappers, and interpreters, who, through misconception in the begin- 
ning and their own introduction or modification of gestures, have produced 
;i jargon in the sign as well as in the oral intercour.se. If an Indian finds 
that his interlocutor insists upon understanding and using a certain sign in 
a particular manner, it is within the very nature, tentative and elastic, of the 
gesture art — both performers being on an equality— that he should adopt 
the one that seems to be recognized or that is pressed upon him, as with 
much greati r difficulty lie lias learned and adopted many foreign terms used 
w ith whites before attempting to acquire their language, but never with his 
own race. Tims there is now. and perhaps always has been, what may be 
called a lingua-franca in the sign vocabulary. It may be ascertained that all 
the tribes of the plains having learned by experience that white visitors expect 
to n i lin signs really originating with the latter, use them in their 

intercourse, jusl as they sometimes do the words "squaw" and "papoose," 
corruptions of the Algonkin, and once as meaningless in the present West 
as the English terms "woman" and "child," but which the first pioneers, 
having learned them on the Atlantic coast, insisted upon as generally intel- 
ligible. This process of adaptation may be one of the explanations of the 
reported universal code. 

It is also highly probable that signs will be invented by individual 
I ndians who may be pressed by collectors tbr them to express certain ideas. 

which signs of course form no part of the current language; but while that 
fact should, if possible, be ascertained and reported, the signs so invented 
are no is merely becan are original and not traditional, if 

they are made in good faith and in accordance with the principles of sign- 



[NSTANCE OF OVER-ZEAL. 43 

formation. The process resembles the coining of new words to which the 
higher languages owe their copiousness. It is noticed in the signs invented 
by Indians for each now product of civilization broughl to their notice. 
Less error will arise in this direction than from the misinterpretation of the 
idea intended to be conveyed by spontaneous signs. 

The absurdity to which over-zeal may be exposed is illustrated by an 
anecdote found in several versions and in several languages, but repi 
as a veritable Scotch legend by Duncan Anderson, esq., principal of the 
Glasgow Institution tor the Deaf and Dumb, when he visited Washington 
in 1853. 

King James 1 of England desiring to play a trick upon the Spanish 
ambassador, a man of greal erudition, hut who had a crotchet in his head 
upon sign-language, informed him that there was a distinguished professor 
of that science in the University at Aberdeen. The ambassador set out for 
that place, preceded by a letter from the King with instructions to make the 
best of him. There was in the town one Gcordy, a butcher, blind of one e\ e, 
a fellow of much wit and drollery. Geordy is told to play the part of a pro- 
fessor, with the warning not to speak a word, is gowned, wigged, and placed 
in a chair of state, when the ambassador is shown in and they are left 
alone together. Presently the nobleman came out greatly pleased with 
the experiment, claiming that his theory was demonstrated. lie said, 
"When I entered the room I raised one linger, to signify there is one God. 
He replied by raising two fingers to signify that this Being rules over two 
worlds, the material and the spiritual. Then I raised three lingers, to say 
there are three persons in the Godhead. -Ilethen closed bis fingers, evi- 
dently to say these three are 0»e." After this explanation on the part of 
the nobleman, the professors sent for the butcher and asked him what 
took place in the recitation-room. He appeared very angry and said, 
" When the. crazy man entered the room where I was he raised one finger, 
as much as to say, I had but one eye, and I raised two fingers .0 signify 
that I could see out of my one eye as well as he could out of botb oi Ins. 
When he raised three fingers, as much as to say there were la,, thro, 
between us, I doubled up my fist, and if he had not gon it oi that 1 

in a hurry T would have knocked him down." 



S1M v \i> STORIES DESIRED. 

factorym rate signs is to induce 

.. or hold talks in gesture, with one 

his own oral language if the lattei is under- 

I if nor, the words, not the signs, should be trans- 

i white interpreter. It will be easy afterward to 

3 used. This mode will determine 

ich sign, and corresponds with the plan 

of Ethnology for the study of the aboriginal 

voca ] of that arising out oi' exclusively missionary pur- 

5, which was to force a translation oi' the Bible from a tongue not 

adapted to its terms and ideas, and then to compile a grammar and dic- 

V from the artificial result. A little ingenuity will direct the more 

to the ex; : the thoughts, signs 

lly sought : and full orderly descriptions oi' such tales 
and talks with or even without analysis and illustration are more desired 
than any other form oi' contribution. No such descriptions of any value 
have been found in print, and the l>est one thus far obtained through the 
lence of the present writer is given below, with the hope that 
emulation will !: is the farewell address of Kin ( 

iedicine-man oi' the Wichitas, to Missionary A. J. Holt 
on his departure from the Wichita Agency, in the words of the latter. 

A SPEECH IN' SIGNS. 

Be placed one hand on my breast, the other on his own, then cl 

his two ha rafter the manner of our congratulations, — We are 

lie placed o'.ic hand on me, the other on himself, then placed tin' 

first two fingers of his right hand between his lips. — I' fliers. He 

' hand over my heart, his left hand over his own heart, then 

linked the first fingers of Ids right and left hands, — Our Jiearts 

!i lid his right hand on me lightly, then put it to his mouth, 

with the knuckles lightly against his lips, and made the motion of flipping 

r from the right-hand forefinger, each flip casting the hand and arm 

from the mouth a fo then bringing it back in the same position. 

Tin. >re time-, signifying "talk" or talking.) lie then 



I 

I 

I 
in the way l>< : 
righl 
Plach g his righl . 

I 
Pointing to his 

. 
i 

breast and breathed deeply two or fhri 

and thumb of each hand as if he were b 

• 

and betw * of each hand 

then let I still holdi 

. 
his breast, then 
him 

and 
fen 



)( ; SPEEt II OF KIN i III-: ESS. 

his left hand remaining al Ids breast, and hia ryes following his right,— I go 
but will be cut off shortly and my spirit will go away 
Placing the thumbs and forefingers again in such a position 
a8 if |,,. h e l(] a small thread between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, 
;ill ,l th e hands touching eacb other, be drew his hands slowly from each 
other, as if be were stretching a piece of gum-elastic; then laying his right 
hand -.ii me, he extended the left hand in a horizontal position, fingers 

ded and closed, and broughtdown his right hand with fingers extended 
and together, so as tojusl miss the tips of the fingers of his left hand; then 
placing his left forefinger and thumb againsl his heart, he acted as if he 
took a hair from the forefinger and thumb of his left hand with the fore- 

i and thumb of the right, and slowly cast it from him, only letting' his 
left hand remain at his breast, and let the index-finger of the right hand 
]»>int outward toward the distant horizon, — After along time you die. When 
placing his left hand upon himself and his right hand upon me, he extended 
them upward over his head and clasped them there, — We thru meet hi heaven. 
Pointing upward, then to himself, then to me, he closed the third and little 
finger of his right hand, laying his thumb over them, then extending his 
firs! and second fingers about as far apart as the eyes, he brought his hand 
to his eyes, fingers pointing outward, and shot his hand outward, — Iseeyott 
up there. Pointing to me, then giving the last above-described sign of 
"look," then pointing to himself, he made the sign as if stretching out a 
piece of gum-elastic between the lingers of his left and right hands, and 
then made the sign of "cut-off" before described, and then extended the 
palm of the righl hand horizontally a fool from his waist, inside downward, 
then suddenly threw it half over and from him, as if you were to toss a 
chip from the hark of the hand (this is the negative sign everywhere 
used among these Indians), — / would see him a long time, which should never 
■ . alwaj s. 

Pointing upward, then rubbing the back of his left hand lightly 
with the forefinger of his right, he again gave the negative sign, — 
- v ' / (in heaven). Pointing upward, then rubbing his fore- 

finger over the back of my hand, he again made the negative sign, — 
He made the same sign again, only he felt his hair 



A STORY IN SKINS. I 7 

with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, rolling the hair several 
times between the fingers, — No Hack man inheaven. Then rubbingtheb 
of his hand and making the negative sign, rubbing the back of my hand 
and making the negative sign, feeling of one of his hairs with the thumb 
and forefinger of his right hand, and making the negative sign, then usi 
both hands as if he were reaching around a hogshead, he broughl the fore- 
finger of his righl hand to the front in an uprighl position after their man- 
ner of counting, and said thereby, — No Indian, no white man, no Mack 1 
all one. Making the "hogshead" sign, and thai for "look," he placed the 
forefinger of each hand side by side pointing upward, — All look the same, or 
alike. Running his hands over his wild Indian costume and over m\ 
clothes, he made the "hogshead" sign, and that for "same." and said 
thereby, — All dress alike there. Then making the " hogshead " sign, and 
that for "love" (hugging his hands), he extended both hands outward, 
palms turned downward, and made a sign exactly similar to the way ladies 
smooth a bed in making it; this is the sign for "happy," — All will be happy 
alike their. He then made the sign for "talk," and for "Father," pointing to 
himself and to me, — You pray forme. He then made the sign (or "go a 
pointing to me, he threw right hand over his right shoulder so his index- 
finger pointed behind him, — You go away. Calling his name he made the 
sign for " look" and the sign of negation after pointing to me, — Kin < % -■ ss 
see »ou no more. 



The following, which is presented as abetter descriptive model, was 
obtained by Dr. W. J. Hoffman, of the Bureau of Ethnology, loan Natshes, 
the Pah-Ute chief connected with the delegation before mentioned, and 
refers to an expedition made by him by direction of his father, Winne- 
mucca, Head Chief of the Pah-Utes, to the northern camp of his tribe, 
partly for the purpose of preventing the hostile outbreak of the I' 
which occurred in 1878, and more particularly to prevent those Pal. I t. i 
tVom being drawn into any difficulty with the authorities by hem,- . 
with the Bannocks. 



A STORY !N SIGNS. 

A STORY IN M'- 
llie right hand, leaving the index extended, pointed west- 
ward at arm's length a little ahove tin- horizon, head thrown back with 
m ,1 and following the direction, — Away to the west, (2) 
; n di c on the ground with the forefinger of the right hand 

>wnYrard,—plact locative), ( .'! ) the tips of the spread fingers of both 
hands pla< ' one another, pointing upward before the body, leav- 

four or live inches between the wrists, — house (brush tent or 
wick'-i-up), (1) with the right hand closed, index extended or slightly bent, 
tap the 1,: ral times, — mine. (5) Draw an imaginary line, with 

the right index toward the ground, from some distance in front of the body 
to a position nearer to it,— -from there 1 indicate a spot on the 

ground by quickly raising and depressing the right hand with the index 
pointing downward, — to 7) grasp the forelock with the 

right hand, palm to the forehead, and raise it about six inches, still holding 
the hair upward, — /.' Winnemucca), (8) touch the breast 

with the index. — me, (9) the right hand held forward from the hip at the 
level of tin.' elbow, closed, palm downward, with the middle finger ex- 
tended and quickly moved up and down a short distance, — telegraphed, 
Inad incline, 1 toward the right, at the same time making move- 
ment toward and from the ear with the extended index pointing towards 
it, — / »od. 

An imaginary line indicated with the extended and inverted index 
from a short distance before the body to a place on the right, — Iivent, (12) 
sture No. 6, — a l.'l) inclining the head, with eyes 

1. toward the right, bring the extended right hand, palm up, to within 
the right ear, — ivheri I slept. (14) Place the spread and 
extended index and thumb of the right hand, palm downward, across the 
right side of the forehead,— white man (American), (15) elevating both 
hands before the breast, palms forward, thumbs touching, the little finger 
of die right hand closed, — ill . L6 touch the breast with the right fore - 
r suddenly, — a the hand, and pointing down- 

ward and forward with the index still extended (the remaining fingers and 
thumb being loosely closed) indicate an imaginary line along the ground 



A STORY IX SIGNS. 



I'.! 



toward the extreme right,— ic : 18 extend the forefinger of the cl. 
left hand, and place th | f ore and second fingers oi 

astraddle the forefinger of the left, and make a - ; hed ,„• curved 

movements Toward the right,— r. hands in 

their relative position, place them a short di ■■.- the righl ear, the 

head being- inclined toward that side,— 
(No. 18 and sleeping (No. 19) three times,-: fo 
sign No. 18, and stopping suddenly point toward the east with th i 
index-finger of the right eing closed) and follow the course of tin- 

sun until it reaches the zenith, — arriv 

(22) Indicate a circle as in No. 2,— a camp, i 23 the hands then placed 
together as in No. 3, and in this position, both moved in short irregular 
upward and downward jerks from side to side, — i then 

indicate the chief of the tribe as in No. 7. — meaning that it 
camps of the < '■ -'■"> Make a pecidiar whistling sound of 

••phew" and draw the extended index of the right hand across the throat 
from left to right. — Bannock, (26) draw an imaginary line with the same 
extended index, pointing toward the ground, from the right to the body, — 
came from tie north, (27) again make gesture No. •_'.— < I ml follow 

it twice by sign given a- No. 18 (forward from the body, hut a short dis- 
tance ,. — (wo rodi . • 29 Rub the back of the right hand with the extended 
index of the left. — Indian, i. e., the narrator's own tribe, Pah-Ute, 
vate both hands side by side before the breast, palms forward, thumbs 
touching, then, after a short pause, close all the fingers and thuml 
the two outer fingers of the right hand,— twt the hands 

side by side with fingers all spread or separated, and move them in a hori- 
zontal curve toward the right,— and make the s 
given as No. 25— B that of No. -J.— then join 
hands as in No. 31, iron, the right towards the front,— Pi 
close the right hand, leaving the index only extended, move it forward and 
downward from the mouth three or four times, pointing forward, each time 
ending the movement at a different point,-J 

pointing upward, fingers and thumbs separated, palms faci bout 

tour inches apart, held in front of the body as far as possible in that | 
4 s i 



5Q \ >M>K\ l\ SIGNS. 

t \ oli) — the men • point toward the east with the index appar- 
ently curving downward over the horiz then gradually elevate it to an 

altitude of 1"> . — talked all night and until nine o'clock next morning, (38) bring 

the closed hands, with forefing< rs extended, upward and forward from their 

. Mini place them side by side, palms forward, in front, — my 

19) followed by the gesture, X". 18, directed toward the left and 

front, — rode, 10) by No. 7, — the head chief, (41) and No. :.', — camp. 

Continue by placing the bands, slightly curved, palm to palm, 
holding them about six inches below the right ear, the head being inclined 
bly in thai direction, — one sleep {night), (43) make sign No. 14, — 
whiti man, the left hand to the level of the elbow- forward from 

the left hip, fingers pointing upward, thumb and forefinger closed, — three, 
15) ami in this position draw them toward the body and slightly to the 
right, — came, I 16) then make gesture X<>. I-', — sleep; (47) point with the 
right index to the eastern horizon, — in the morning, (48) make sign No. 
14, — whiteman, I 19), bold the left hand nearly at arm's length before the 
body, back up, thumb and forefinger (dosed, the remaining fingers pointing 
downward, — three, (50) with the right index-finger make gesture No. 35, 
the mov. meat being directed towards the left hand, — talked l" them, (51) 
i along the ground with the left hand, from the body toward the left 
and front, retaining the position of the fingers just stated (in No. 49), — 
Hi' ii i'' 52 tap toward the ground, as in gesture No. 6, with the left 
band nearl) at arm's length, — In their camp. 

Hake gesture No. 18 toward the front, — / rode, (51) extend the 
right band to die left and front, and tap towards the earth several times as 
in sign No. 6, having the fingers and thumb collected to a point, — camp of 
lln white men (55) Close both hands, with the forefingers of each partly 
ided and crooked, and place one on either side of the forehead, palms 
forward, — cattle i it 5t< or i, I 56 I hold the left hand loosely extended, backfor- 
ward, aboul twenty inches before the breast, and strike the back of the 
partly extended right hand into the left, — shot, (57) make a short upward 
curved movement with both hands, their position unchanged, over and 
downward toward the right,—; fell over, killed, (58) then hold the left hand a, 
.short distance before the body at the height of the elbow, palm downward. 



A STORY IN SIGNS. - ){ 

angers closed, with the thumh lying over the second joint of th 
linger, extend tin, flattened right band, edge down, before the body, j US | 
by the knuckles of the left, and draw the hand towards the body, r, 
the movement,— skinned, (59) make the sign given in No. 25,— Bo 
(60) place both hands with spread fingers upward and palms forward, thumb 
to thumb, before the right shoulder, m ;1 with n tremulous motion 

toward the left and front,— came in, (til) make three shorl movements 
toward the ground in front, with the left hand, fingers looselj curved, and 
pointing downward,— camp of the three white men, (<;2) then with tin 
hand open and flattened, edge down, cul towards the bod) as well , 
right and left, — cut up the meat, (63) and make the pantomimic gesture of 
handing it around to the visitors. 

(64) Make sign No. 35, the movement being directed to the left hand, 
as held in No. 49, — told the white men, (65) grasping the hair en the right side 
dt' the head with the left hand, and drawing the extended right hand with 
the edge towards and across the side of the head from behind forward, — to 
scalp; (66) close the right hand, leaving the index partly extended, and wave- 
it several times quickly from side to side a short distance before the face, 
slightlv shaking the head at the same time, — no, (67) make gesture No 1, — 
me, (68) repeat No. G5, — scalp, (69) and raising the forelock high with the 
left hand, straighten the whole frame with a triumphant air. — mal 
great chief. (70) Close the right hand with the index fully extended, place 
the tip t<> the mouth and direct it firmly forward and downward toward the 
ground, — stop, (71 ) then placing the hands, pointing upward, side by side, 
thumbs touching, and all the fingers separated, move them from near the 
breast outward toward the right, palms facing that direction al termination 
of movement, — the Bannocks went to one side, (72) with the right hand 
closed, index curved, palm downward, point toward the western horizon, 
and at arm's length dip the finger downward,— aftei IS) make the 

gesture given as No. 1 h— , (74) pointing to the heart as in No. 4- 

andl, (75) conclude by making gesture No 18 from near bodj toward the 
left, four times, at the end of each movement the hands remaining in the 
same position, thrown slightly upward— m > I on horseback. 



52 ORAL PARAPHRASE OF THE STORY. 

The above was paraphrased orally by the narrator as follows: Hearing 
f the trouble in the north, I started eastward from my camp in Western 
Nevada, when, upon arriving at Winnemucca Station, I received telegraphic 
orders from the head chief to go north to induce our bands in that region 
to escape the approaching difficulties with the Bannocks. J started for Camp 
McDermit, where I remained one night. Leaving next morning in com- 
pany with nine others, we rode on for tour days and a half. Soon after our 
arrival al the Pah-Ute camp, two Bannocks came in, when I sent twelve 
Pah-Utes to their camp to ask them all to come in to hold council. These 
messengers soon returned, when I collected all the Pah-Utes and talked to 
them all night regarding the dangers of an alliance with the Bannocks and 
of their continuance in that locality. Next morning I sent my brother to 
the chief, Winnemucca, with a report of proceedings. 

( )n the following day three white men rode into camp, who had come 
up to aid in persuading the Pah-Utes to move away from the border. Next 
morning 1 consulted with them respecting future operations, after which they 
went away a -hurt distance to their camp. 1 then followed them, where I 
-hot ami killed a steer, and while skinning it the Bannocks came in, when 
the meat was distributed. The Bannocks being disposed to become violent 
at an\ moment, the white men became alarmed, when I told them that 
rather than allow them to lie scalped I would he scalped myself in defend- 
ing them, for which action I would he considered as great a chief as Win- 
nemucca l'\ my people. When I told the Bannocks to cease threatening 
the while men they all moved to one side a short distance to hold a war 
Council, and after the sun went down the white men and I mounted our 
horses and lied toward the south, whence we came. 

Some of the above signs seem to require explanation. Xatshes was 
facing the wesl during the whole of this narration, and by the right he 
signified the north: this will explain the significance of his gesture to the 
right in No-. 11 and 17. and to the left in No. 75. 

No. 2 i repeated in Nos. 22, 27, .".;;, and -1 1 ), designates an Indian brush 
lodge, and although Natshes has not occupied one lor some years, the ges- 
ture illustrates the original conception in the round form of the foundation 
ol poles, branches, and brush, the interlacing of which in the construction 



REMARKS ON THE SIGNS IN Till: STORY. 



53 



of the wick'-i-up has survived in gestures Nos. 3 and 23 (the latter referring 

to more than one, i. e, an encampment) 

The sign for Bannock, No. 25 (also 32 and 59), ha n from the 

tradition among the Pah-Utes that the Bannocks were in tin- habit of cut- 
ting the throats of their victims. This sign is made with the index instead 
of the similar gesture with theflal hand, which among several tribes denotes 
the Sioux, but the Pah-Utes examined had no specific sign for thai body of 
Indians, not having been in sufficienl contact with them. 

"A stopping place," referred to in Nos. 6, 12, 52, and .VI. represents 
the settlement, station, or camp of white men. and is contradistinguished by 
merely dotting toward the ground instead of indicating a circle. 

It will also be seen that in several instances, after indicating the nation- 
ality, the fingers previously used in representing the number were repeated 
without its previously accompanying specific gesture, as in No. <>1, where the 
three fingers of the left hand represented the men | white), and the three m..\ e- 
ments toward the ground signified the camp or tents of the three | white | men. 

This also occurs in the gesture (Nos. 59, 60, and 71 i employed for the 
Bannocks, which, having been once specified, is used subsequently without 
its specific preceding sign for the tribe represented. 

The rapid connection of the signs Nos. 57 and 58, and of Nos. 71 and 
75 indicates the conjunction, so that they are severally readilj understood 
as "shot and killed," and "the white men and I." The same remark applies 
to Nos. 15 and 16, "the nine and I." 

In the examination of the sign-language it is importani to form a clear 

distinction between signs proper and symbols. All characters in Indian 
picture-writing have been loosely styled symbols, and as there is no logical 
distinction between the characters impressed with enduring form, and when 
merely outlined in the ambient air, all Indian gesture.-, motion-, and atti- 
tudes 'might with equal appropriateness be called symbolic. While, how- 
ever, all symbols come under the generic head of signs, verj few signs are 
in accurate classification symbols. S. T. Coleeidge has defined a symbol 
to be a sign included in the idea ii represents. This may he intelligible ,1 
it is intended that an ordinary sign is extraneous to the concept, am!, rather 



SYMBOLS, EMBLEMS AND SIGNS. 

,| |;1M directh suggested b) it, is invented to express it by sonic representa- 
tion or analogy, while a symbol niaj be evolved by a process of thought 
from the concept itself ; but it is no verj exhaustive or practically useful 
distinction. Symbols are less obvious and more artificial than mere signs, 
require convention, are uol onlj abstract, but metaphysical, and often need 
explanation from history, religion, and customs. Our symbols of the ark, 
dove, olive branch, and rainbow would be wholly meaningless to people 
unfamiliar with the Mosaic or some similar cosmology, as would be the 
cross and the crescent to those ignoranl of history. The last-named objects 
appeared in the lower class of emblems when used in designating the con- 
flicting powers of Christendom and Islamism. Emblems do not necessarily 
require any analogy between the objects representing and those, or the 
qualities, represented, but may arise from pur*; accident. After a scurrilous 
jest the beggar's wallet became the emblem of the confederated nobles, the 
Gueux, of the Netherlands; anda sling, in the early minority of Louis XIV, 
was adopted from the retrain of a soul;' by the Frondeur opponents of 
Mazarin. The several tribal signs for the Sioux, Arapaho, Cheyenne, &c, 
are their emblems precisely as the star-spangled flag is that of the United 
States, but there is nothing symbolic in any of -them. So the signs for indi- 
vidual chiefs, when not merely translations of their names, are emblematic 
of tin ir family totems or personal distinctions, and are no more symbols 
than are the distinctive shoulder-straps of army officers. The crux ansata 
and the circle formed by a snake biting its tail are symbols, but consensus 
as well as invention was necessary for their establishment, and our Indians 
have produced nothing so esoteric, nothing which they intended for herme- 
neutic as distinct from mnemonic purposes. Sign-language can undoubtedly, 
be employed to express highly metaphysical ideas, indeed is so employed 
by educated deaf-mutes, but to do that in a system requires a development 
of the mode of expression consequent upon a similar development of the 
mental idiocrasy of the gesturers far beyond any yet found among historic 
tribes north of Mexico. A very few of their signs may at first appear to 
be s) i even those on closer examination will probably be rele- 

■■ class of emblems, as was the case of that for " Partisan" given 
h\ the Prince of WlliD. By that title he meant, as indeed was the common 



ABBREVIATION AM) REDUCTION. 

expression of the Canadian voyageurs, a leader of an occasional orvoluni 
war party, and the sign he reports as follows: " Make firsl the sign of the 
pipe, afterwards open the thumb and index-finger of the right hand, b 
of the hand outward, and move it forward and upward in a curve." Tins 
is explained by the author's account in a different connection, that r. . bee 
recognized as a leader of such a war party as above mentioned, the first 
act among the tribes using the sign was the consecration, by fasting suc- 
ceeded by feasting, of a medicine pipe without ornament, which the leader 
of the expedition afterward bore before him as his badge of authority, and 
it therefore naturally became an emblematic sign. There ma\ he inter- 
est in noting that the ''Calendar of the Dakota Nation" (Bulletin l'. S. 
G. and G. Survey, vol in, No 1), gives a figure (No. 1".. A. I >. 1842) 
showing "One Feather," a Sioux chief who raised in that year a large 
war party against the Crows, which fact is simply denoted by his hold- 
ing out demonstratively an unornamented [ape. The point urged is that 
while any sign or emblem can be converted by convention into a symbol, 
or be explained as such by perverted ingenuity, it is futile to seek for 
symbolism in the stage of aboriginal development, and to interpret the con- 
ception of particular signs by that form of psychologic exuberance were to 
fall into mooning mysticism. This was shown by a correspondent of the 
present writer, who enthusiastically lauded the Dakota Calendar (edited by 
the latter, and a mere figuration of successive occurrence.-) a-- a numerical 
exposition of the great doctrines of the Sun religion in the equations of 
time, and proved to his own satisfaction that our Indians preserved h,r- 
meneutically the lost geometric cultus of pre-Cusliite scientists, lie might 
as well have deciphered it as the tabulated dynasties of the pre-Adamite 

kings. 

A lesson was learned by the writer as to the abbreviation of signs, and 
the possibility of discovering the original meaning of those most obscure, 
from the attempts of a Cheyenne to convey the idea of old mm. He held 
his right hand forward, Lent at elbow, fingers and thumb closed sidev 
This not conveying any sens,. In- found a long stick, hem bis hack, ami sup- 
ported his frame in a 'tottering step by the stick held, a- was before only 
imao-ined. There at once was decrepit age dependent on a -tail: 'I he 



-i:\ l ENUES \M» S'S MAX, 

principle of abbreviation or reduction may be illustrated by supposing a 
person, under circumstances forbidding the use of the voice, seeking to call 
.;,„, ,,,., particular bird ona tree, and failing to do so by mere indication. 
..,,-.. resorted to, perhaps suggesting the bill and wings of the 
bird, its manner of clinging to the twig with its feet, its size by seeming to 
!„,!,[ it between the bands, its color by pointing to objects of the same hue; 
perhaps by the action of shooting into a tree, picking up the supposed 
fallen game, and plucking feathers. These an- continued until understood, 
and if one sign or group of signs proves t<> be successful that will be re- 
el ,,ii the next occasion by both persons engaged, and when becoming 
familiar between them and cithers will he more and more abbreviated. To 
this degree only, when the signs of the Indians have from ideographic form 
become demotic, arc they conventional, and none of them are arbitrary, hut 
in them, as in all his actions, man had at first a definite meaning or purpose, 
together with method in their after changes or modifications. The forma- 
tion and reception of signs upon a generally understood principle, by which 
the) may he comprehended when seen for the first time, has been before 
noticed as one of the causes of the report of a common code, as out of a 
variety of gestures, each appropriate to express a particular i'dea, an ob- 
server may readily have met the same one in several localities. 

It wen- needless to suggest to any qualified observer that there is in 
the gesture-speech n ganized sentence such as is integrated in the lan- 
guages of civilization, and that he must not look for articles or particles or 
passive voice or case or grammatic gender, or even what we use as a sub- 
stantive or a verb, as a subject or a predicate, or as qualifiers or inflexions. 
The sign radicals, without being specifically any of our parts of speech, 
may he all of them in turn. He will find no part of grammar beyond the 
pictorial grouping which may be classed under the scholastic head of syn- 
tax, hut that exception is sufficiently important to make it desirable that 
specimens of narratives and speeches in the exact order of their gesticula- 
tion should he reported. The want before mentioned, of a sufficiently com- 
plete and exact collection of tales ami talks in the sign-language of the 
Indian-, leaves it impossible to dwell now upon their syntax, but the sub- 
ject has received much discussion in connection with the order of deaf-mute 



WORDS AMI SIGNS NOT CONVERTIBLE. -, 7 

signs as compared with oral speech, some aotes of which, condensed from 
the speculations of \ alade and others, are as follows: 

In mimic construction there are to be considered both the order in which 
the signs succeed one another and the relative positions in 'which thej are 
raade > fch e latter remaining longer in the memory than the former, and 
spoken language may sometimes in its earl) infancy have reproduced the 
ideas of a sign-picture without commencing from the same point. So the 
order, as in Greek and Latin, is very variable. In nations among whom the 
alphabet was introduced without the intermediary to any impressive degree 
of picture-writing, the order being, 1. language of signs, almost superseded 
by, 2, spoken language, and, 3, alphabetic writing, men would write in the 
order in which they had been accustomed to speak. But if al a time when 
spoken language was still rudimentary, intercourse being mainly carried on 
by signs, figurative writing- was invented, the order of the Bgures will be 
the order of the signs, and the same order will pass into the spoken lan- 
guage. Hence LEIBNITZ siivs truly that " the writing of the ( 'hinese nii-ht 
seem to have been invented by a deaf person." Their oral lamniaue has 
not known the phases which have given to the [ndo-European tons 
their formation and grammatical parts. In the latter. >ign> were conquered 
by speech, while in the former, speech received the yoke. 

If the collocation of the figures of Indians taking the place of our sen- 
tences shall establish no rule of construction, it will at least show the 

natural order of ideas in the aboriginal mind and the several i les "I' 

inversion liv which they pass from the known to the unknown, beginning 
with tin/ dominant idea or that supposed to be best known. So tar as 
studied by the present writer the Indian sign-utterance, as well ;i- that 
natural to deaf-mutes, appears to retain the characteristic of pantomime in 
giving first the principal figure, and in adding the accessories successivel) . 
the ideographic expressions being in the ideological order. 

As of sentences so of words, strictly known as such, there can he no 
accurate translation. So far from tin- signs representing words as 1< 
graphs, they do not in their presentation of the ideas of actions, objectS ) 
and events, under physical tonus, even suggest words, which must lu- skill- 
fully htted to them by the glossarist ami laboriously derived from them by 



CLASSIFY ATION AMi ANALYSIS. 

the philologer. The use of words in formulation, still more in terminology, 
wide a departure from primitive conditions as to be incompatible with 
the only primordial language yet discovered. No dictionary of signs will 
haustive for the simple reason thai the signs are exhaustless, nor will 
;, b e eX acl becai I cannol be a correspondence between signs and 
words taken individually. Words and signs both change their meaning 
from the context. A single word may express a complex idea, to be fully 
rendered only by a -roup of signs, and, vice versd, a single sign may suffice 
for a numberof words. The list annexed to the present pamphlet is by no 
means intended for exacl translation, bul as a suggestion of headings or 
titles of signs arranged alphabetically for mere convenience. 

It will be interesting to ascertain the' varying extent of familiarity 
with sign-language among the members of the several tribes, how large a 
proportion possess any skill in it, the average amount of their vocabulary, 
the degree to which women become proficient, and the age at which chil- 
dren commence its practice. The statement is made by Titchkematski that 
the Kaiow.-i and < Jomancke women know nothing of the sign-language, while 
the Cheyenne women are versed in it. As he is a Cheyenne, however, he 
maj no1 have a large circle of feminine acquaintances beyond his own tribe, 
and his negative testimony is not valuable. A more general assertion is 
that the signs used by males and females arc different, though mutuallyun- 
derstood, and some minor points of observation may be indicated, such as 
whether the commencement of counting upon the fingers is upon those of 
the right or the left hand, and whether Indians take pains to look toward 
the south when suggesting the course of the sun, which would give the 
motion from left to righl 

CLASSIFICATION AND ANALYSIS. 

An important division of the deaf-mute signs is into natural and method- 
ical, the latter being sometimes called artificial and stigmatized as parasitical'. 
But signs iii.i\ be artificial — that i>, natural, but improved and enriched by 
art — and even arbitrary, without being strictly what is termed methodical, 
the latter being pan of the instruction of deaf-mutes, founded upon spoken 
languages, aud adapted to the words and grammatical forms of those Ian- 



SI NCI,!! SIGNS 



59 



guages. This division is nol appropriate to thesigns of [ndians, which are 
all natural in this sense, and in their beauty, grace, and impressiveness. In 
another meaning of " natural," given by deaf-mute authorities, il lias little 
distinction from "innate." and still another, "conveying the meaning at first 
sight," is hardly definite. 

l'he signs of our Indians may be divided, in accordance with the mode 
of their consideration, into innate (generally emotional | ami invented ; into 
developed and abridged ; into radical and derivative ; and into, l. Indica- 
tive, as directly as possible of the objed intended: 2. Imitative, represent- 
ing il by configurative drawing; .">. Operative, referring to actions; and 
4. Expressive, being chiefly facial. A.s thej are rhetorically as well as 
directly figurative, they may be classified under the tropes of metaphor, 
s\ necdoche, metonymy, and catachresis, with as much or as little advantage 
as has been gained by the labeling in text-books of our figures of articulate 
speech. 

The most useful division, however, tot- the analysis and report with 
wh'ich collectors are concerned is into single and compound, each including 
a number of subordinate groups, examples of wh'ich will he useful. 3 
of those here submitted are taken from the selected list before introduced 
to discriminate between the alleged universality of the signs themselves and 
of their use as an art, and the examples of deaf-mute signs have been 
extracted from those given for the same purpose by Mgr. I >. De Haerne in 
his admirable analysis of those signs, which also has been used so far as ap- 
plicable. Tln.se will be equally illustrative, both the Indian and deaf-mute 
signs being but dialects of a common stock, and while all the examples might 
be taken from the collection of Indian signs already made, the main object 
of the present work is to verify and correct that collection rather than to 
publish more of it than necessary, with possible perpetuation of error in 
some details. 

SINGLE SIGNS 

Sin-le signs have been often styled - simple," which tern, is objection- 
able because liable to be confounded with the id,,, of "plain," m winch 
sense nearly all Indian signs, being natural, are simple They, 






SINGLE SIGNS. 



as Bhow only one phase or quality of the object signified. The following 
are the principal forms which they take: 

ed. This is the 

Indicative division before mentioned. All the signs for "I, myself" given 
above, are examples, and another is the wetting of the tip of the finger by 
deaf-mutes to indicate humidity, the spi cies being in the latter case used for 

nus. 
•_» j,, of the object, or more generally a part of the 

outlines. The Imitative or configurative division of signs reappears in this 
ss and the one following. Example: The above sign for "dog," which 
conforms t<> the outline of its head and back. 
lion or of the action. 
(a.) Imitation of the condition or state of being. Under this form 
cine nearly all the designations of size and measure. See some under 
.• Quantity," above. 

I nutation of the action, or of activity in connection with the object 
Most of the idea- which we express by verbs come in this category, but in 
sign-language they are as' properly substantives or adjectives. They may 
itative when the action, as of " eating,"is simulated in pantomime; or 
Operative, as when "walking" is actually performed by taking steps : or 
Expn ssi - when "gri phig>" appears in facial play. 

4 The contact had with the object, or tic: manner of u±\n<j it. For "break"' 
an imaginary stick may he snapped and the two parts looked at as if sep- 
for "destroyed." (Dodge.) A knife and most other 
I by their 

>- th. whole, or particular signs made to represent all 
bject. 
This cla>s has reference to synecdoche. The Cheyenne sign for " old 

is an example. 
<■. II 

Bere is metonymy representing the cause for the effect. An example 
may be found among us when a still wine is indicated by the action of 
drawing a cork from a bottle, effervescent champagne by cutting the wires, 
ami coffee by the imaginary grinding of the berry. 



- 
7 '■ 

or as a general . 

He: 
express touching the 

has that color among India] s) ? " red," the lips 

similarly i 

In this class - . 

5s the dispositions 

- - - - 

Itis a - ... 

? the signs for "g 

signs - • 

qnalit - desig 

se which are called sing . 

are. a 

tegories signs 

heads, forming the : a - - - 

1. ' 

• . 
5 the o sis the s 

out nionev. C this - - — 

• 
state tag the g L sign is 

- _ - spring 

2 

j 
- 

- 
? ig 

- - 

- - 



02 COMPOUND SIGNS. 

parts or specific marks. "Hail "is shown by the sign for 
•• white," then its falling rapidly from above and striking head, arms, &c, 
or by signs for " rain " and " hard." 

;; ,, . of the object (for the object itself, by 

metonymy). A pen would once have been undersl 1 by the sign for 

before mentioned, followed by the action of writing. 
1 Effects for causes (also by metonymy). For "wind" blow with the 
mouth and make with the hands the motion of the wind in a determined 
direction. 

5. Form and 

The t'ainih of signs composing this category is very numerous. The 
form is generally traced with the forefinger of the right hand in space, or 
hv thv deaf-mutes sometimes upon a surface represented by the left hand 
open : lint the latter device, i. e., of using the left hand as a supposed draft- 
ing surface, has not been reported of the Indians. The use, or employment, 
is expressed by the position of the hands or arms, or by a pantomimic 
movement of the whole body. A good example is " hospital," composed of 
" house," " sick," ami " man}-." 

6. Outline of the object and the place where it is found. Example: The 
horns drawn from the head in one of the signs given above for " deer." 

lcemdtski.) 

7. Shape, mul one or more specific marks. Other signs given for "deer" 
may be instanced. 

8. Way of using mnl specific marks of the object. " Chalk " would be 
distinguished from "pen," before given, by the sign of '" white," followed 
h\ the action of writing. 

9. Shape, mode of using, and specific marks. "Paper" would be 
shown by tracing its length and breadth, if necessary by the motion of 
folding, succeeded by that of writing, and, to make it still more distinct, 
by "white." 

LU. End for which an object is used, or its make, and the place where it is 

I. Example : "Sword," by drawing from a supposed sheath and strik- 
ing; and "milk," by signs for "while." "milking," and "drinking." 

I I. Place and specific mark. The deaf-mute shows "spider" by opening 



TIIE PRINCIPLE OF OPPOSITION. 



63 



all the fingers of both hands, pointing with the lefl hand to a wall, then to 
a corner in the wall shown by the index of the right. 

12. Place, manner of using, or modi of arrangement. The pantomime of 
putting on shoes or stockings by whites or moccasins by Indians indica 
those articles. 

13. Negation of the reverse of what it is desired in describe. Examples: 
"Fool— no," given above, would be "wise." " Good— no," would be "bad." 
This mode of expression is very frequent, ami has 1,.<1 observers to report 
the absence of positive signs lor the ideas negatived, with sometimes as lit- 
tle propriety as if when an ordinary speaker chose to use the negative form 
"not good," it should be inferred that he was ignorant of the word " bad." 

14. Attenuation or diminution of an object stronger or greater than Hut 
which it is desired to representing the converse. Dampwould be"we1 — little"; 
cool, "cold — little"; hot, ''warm — much." In this connection it may lie 
noted that the degree of motion sometimes indicates a different shade of 
meaning, of which the graduation of the signs for ••had" and "contempt" 
{Matthews) is an instance, but is more frequently used for emphasis, as is 
the raising of the voice in speech or italicizing and capitalizing in print 
The meaning of the same motion is often modified, individualized, or accen- 
tuated by associated facial changes and postures of the body not essential 
to the sign, which emotional changes and postures are at once the mosl 
difficult to describe and the most interesting when intelligently reported, 
not only because they infuse life into the skeleton sign, hut because they 
may belong to the class of innate expressions. Facial variations are not 
confined to use in distinguishing synonyms, hut amazing successes have 
been recorded in which Ion- narratives have been communicated between 
deaf-mutes wholly by play of the features, the hands and arms being tied 
for the experiment. 

There remain- to be mentioned as worthy of attention the principle of 
opposition, a- between the right and left hands, and between the thumb and 
forefinger and the little finger, which appears among Indians in - 
expressions for -above." "below," "forward," -back." hut is noi so com- 
mon as amotm the methodical, distinguished from the na.ur, 
mutes This principle is illustrated by the following remarksol Col. Do 



Q I DESCRIPTION AMi lU.rsTI.'ATION. 

which also bear upon the subdivision last above mentioned: "Above" is 
indicated by holding the left hand horizontal, and in front of the body, 
fingers open, but joined together, palm upward. The right hand is then 
placed horizontal, fingers open but joined, palm downward, an inch or more 
above the left, and raised and lowered a few inches several times, the left 
hand being perfectly still. If' the thing indicated as "above" is only a little 
above, this concludes the sign, but if it be considerably above, the right 
hand is raised higher and higher as the height to be expressed is greater, 
until, if enormously above, the Indian will raise his right hand as high as 
possible, and. fixing his eyes on the zenith, emit a duplicate grunt, the more 
prolonged as he desires to express the greater height. All this time the left 
hand is held perfectly motionless. "Below" is exactly the same, except 
that all movement is made by the left or lower hand, the right being held 
motionless, palm downward, and the eyes looking down. 

The rode of the Cistercian monks was based in large part on a system 
of opposition which would more likely lie wrought out by an intentional 
process of invention than by spontaneous figuration, and is rather of mne- 
monic than suggestive value They made two fingers at the right side of 
the nose stand for ••friend." and the same at the left side for "enemy," by 
-nine fanciful connection with right and wrong, and placed the little finger 
on the tip of the nose for "fool" merely because it had been decided to put 
the forefinger there for '•wise man." 

hi FAILS OF DESCRIPTION AND ILLUSTRATION. 

The signs of the Indians appear to consist of motions rather than posi- 
tions — a fact enhancing the difficulty both of their description and illustra- 
tion — and the motions are generally large and free, seldom minute. It 
seems also to be the general rule among Indians as among deaf-mutes that 
the point of the finger is used to trace outlines and the palm of the hand 
to describe surfaces. From an examination of the identical signs made for 
the same objeel by Indians of the same tribe and hand to each other, they 
appear to make mosl gestures with little regard to the position of the fingers 
and to vary in such arrangement from individual taste. Some of the elab- 
orate descriptions, giving with great detail the attitude of the fingers of any 



REMARKS ON LIST OF SIGNS DESIRED. 






particular gesturer and the inches traced by his motions, are of as little 
necessity as would be a careful reproduction of ihe Bourishes of tailed let- 
ters and the thickness of down-strokes in individual chirograph)- when 
quoting a written word. The fingers musl be in somt position, but th 
frequently accidental, nol contributing to the general and essential effi 
and there is a custom or "fashion" in whicb not only different tribes, but 

different persons in the same tribe gesture the si sign with different 

degrees of beauty, for there is calligraphy in sign-language, though no 
recognized orthography. It is nevertheless better to describe and illustrate 
with unnecessary minuteness than to fail in reporting a real differentiation. 
There- are. also, in fact, many signs tunned b\ mere positions of the 
fingers, some of which are abbreviations, but in others the arrangement 
of the fingers in itself tonus a picture. An instance of the latter is one 
of the signs given for the " hear." viz, middle and third finger of right hand 
clasped down by the thumb, tore and little finger extended crooked down- 
ward. (THchkemi This reproduction of the animal's peculiar claws, with 
the hand in any position relative to the body, would suffice without the 
pantomime of scratching in the air, which is added only if it should not be 
at once comprehended. In order to provide tor such cases of minute rep- 
resentation a sheer of "Typks of Hind Positions" ha- been prepared, 
and if none of them exactly correspond to a sign observed, the one most 
nearly corresponding can he readily altered by a few strokes of pen or 
pencil. The sheet of •■ ( )rn.i\i;> of Arm Positions," giving front and 
figures with arms pendent, is also presented as a labor-saving device. The 
directions upon these sheets as illustrated by the sheet of "Examples, 
which concludes this pamphlet, are, it is hoped, sufficiently ample to show 
their proposed use, and copies of them, to any requisite number, will cheer- 
fully be mailed, together with official stamp- for return postag. on contribu- 
tions, by application to the address given below. 

LIST OF SIGNS DESIEED. 

The following is a condensed list, prepared for the use of observ( 
the headings under whirl, the gesture-signs of th- North American Indians 
have been collated lor comparison with each other and with those of deaf- 

."") S L 



66 LIS! OF SIGNS DESIRED. 

mutes and of foreign tribes of men, and not intended to be translated into a 
mere vocabulary, the nature of the elementary principles governing- the 
combinations in the two modes of expression being diverse. Many syno- 
n\ in- have been omitted which will readily fall into place when a sign for 
them may be noticed, and it is probable that many of them, depending upon 
the contexl and upon facial expression will lie separately distinguished only 
with great difficulty. Even when the specific practice of the sign-language 
has been discontinued, the gesture formerly used for a sign as substitute 
for words may survive as a customary accompaniment to oratory or impas- 
sioned conversation, therefore should be noted. The asterisk prefixed to 
some of the words indicates those for which the signs or gestures made are 
specially desired — in some cases for their supposed intrinsic value, and in 
others on account of the incompleteness of their description as yet obtained, 
but it i< not intended that signs corresponding with the words without an 
asterisk will not be welcomed. Observers should only regard this list as 
suggestive, and it is hoped, will add all signs that may be considered by 
them i" In i,l interest. Those tor many animals and utensils, weapons, 
articles of clothing, and similar common objects, have been omitted from 
the li>i because the number of them of a merely configurative or pan- 
tomimic character in the present collection was sufficient in comparison 
with their value, hut when any distinct conception for them in signs is 
remarked it should he contributed. 

Printed forms and outlines similar to those shown at the end of this 
pamphlet, prepared to diminish the labor of description and illustration, 
will he furnished on request mailed to 

Col. Gakrick Malleey, U.S.A., 
Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, 

P. 0. Box 585, Washuicjto)), D. C. 



' Above. Arrow, To liit with an. * Before. 

V.dd, To; more. Aiituiun, tall. 'Beginning; commence- 

Atlinii ;it i..n. Battle. incut. 

Bear. ■ Behind. 

Arrow. I leaver. "Below; under. 

i*4 



LIST OF 8IGNS DESIRED. 



.-,7 



Big. 

Bison, (buffalo.) 

Black. 
Blue. 

Boat, canoe. 

Bow, weapon. 

Brave. 

Break, broken. 

Bring to me; or to us. 

Broad. 

Brother. 

Capture, To. 

Chief. 

, War. 

Child ; baby, infant. 

, offspring. 

Clear. 

Clothing; buffalo-robe or 
skin. 

, woolen blanket. 

Cloud. 

( 'old : it is cold. 

Come; arrive: coming. 

come back. 

come here. 

Companion. 

* Comparison; more, most. 

* Contempt. 
Content, satisfaction. 

* Cross; sulky. 
•Danger. 
Daughter. 
Day. 

to-day. 

to-morrow. 

yesterday. 

Dead; death. 
Deer. 

* Defiance. 

* Destroyed, ruined. 

* Different, contrasted. 
Discontent, dissatisfaction. 

* Disgust. 
Dog. 

Drink; drinking. 
Earth, ground. 



East. 

End, done. 

Enough. 

Equal. 

Exchange. 

fail. To. 

Far. 

Eat, of a person. 

Fat, of meal. 

Fear. 

, a coward; cowardice. 

Female, applied to animals. 

Fight. 

Fire, flame. 

Flat. 

Flour. 

Fly, To. 

Fool, foolish. 

Forest. 

* Forever, always. 
Forgel : forgotten. 
Found : discovered. 
Friend. 

Frost. 

Full, as a box or sack. 

* Fill lire, to come (in time). 
Gap; canon. 

* Generous. 
Girl. 

Give, to me or to us. 

Clad: joy. 

Go; go away. 

God. 

Good. 

* Cone; departed. 

* , lost, spent. 

Grandmother. 
Crass. 

* Cray. 
Crease. 
Cival. 
Green. 

i iricf, sorrow. 
'Crow, To. 
Gun. 
, To hit with a. 



Cuu shot. 

Hair. 

Halt! 

' Halt: a stopping-pli 

Hard. 

* Bate. 

He: another person; they. 

Hear, heard. 

Heavy. 

* Help. To; lo assist. 
■ Here. 

Hide: to conceal : secret. 

High; as a hill. 

Hill. 

* I [onest. 

* Horror. 

' Humble, humility. 

Hunting, for game. 

Husband. 

I : personal pronoun. 

Ice. 

* Imprudent, rash. 

* In ; within. 
Indecision, doubt. 
Kill, killing. 
Kind. 

Know, To. 
1 know. 

I do not know. 

Lance; spear. 

Large, greal in extent. 

in quantity. 

"Leaves, of a tree. 

Lie. falsehood. 

Lie. down. 

Light, daylight. 

in weight. 

Lightning. 

Listen. To. 

Little: small in quantity. 

, in size. 

Lodge; tepee; wigwam. 

Entering a. 

Long, in extenl of surface. 

ill lapse of time. 

book! See! 



68 



LIST OF SIGNS DESIRED. 



Love, affection. 

Male, applied to animals. 

Mau. 

tug, travel 

* M< dicine-man, Shaman. 
Medicine in Indian s 
Mine; my property. 

. month. 
Morning. 
Mother. 
Mountain. 
Much. 
Near. 

Night 

No, negative. 

: I have none-. 
Nothing. 
Now. 

Number; quantity. 
Obtain. 
Old. 

< tppoMle. 

( Hit : outward : without in 

posil 
Paint 
Parent 

■ Past : over in I 
Patii 

Pistol. 
Poor, lean. 

* . indigent 

Prairie. 
Prayer. 

handsome. 

* Pride. 

ler. 

. To lake 

Property; possession; have; 
belong. 

dent, cautions. 
Question; inquiry; what ? 
Bain. 
Red. 



Repeat, often. 

Retreat ; return through 

fear. 
Ridge. 
River. 

Rocky, as a hill. 
Run; running. 
Same similar. 
Scalp. 

Search, to seek for. 
- . To; seeing. 

Seen. 

shamed. 
•Short, in extent. 

* Short, in time. 

Sick. iU. 

Sing. 
Sister. 

Sit down. 

' Slave, servant. 

Sleep. 

Slow. 

Small. 

Snow. 

Suit. 

Sun. 

Sour. 
Speak, To. 

* Spring (season). 
Steamboat 
•Sting 

Stone. 

Storm. 

Strong, strength. 

•Submission. 

' Summer. 

Sun. - 

Sim i 

Sunset. 

Surpi 

Surrender. 

Surround. 

Sweet 

Swift. 

Talk, conversation. 

-Time. 



Think. 

Thunder. 

Time of day: hour. 

• a long' time. 

* a short time. 

Tiled, weary. 
Told me. A person. 
Tomahawk: ax. 
Trade, barter, buy. 
Travel. To. 

* Tree. 
True. It is. 
Truth. 

'Try. To: to attempt. 
Understand. 
Understand, Do not. 

* Vain, vanity. 

* Village. Indian. 

* , White man's 

War. 

War. To declare. 

Water. 

•Well, in health. 

When .' 

Whence ? 

Where 1 

White. 

White man; American. 

Wicked : bad heart. 

Wide, in extent. 

Wife. 

* Wild. 

Wind, air in motion. 

* Winter. 

•Wise; respected for wis- 
dom. 

* Wish : desire for. 
Without: deprivation. 
Woman: squaw. 
Wonder. 

Work. To; to perform. 

Year. 

•Yell , 

Efirmation. 
Von. 



OUTLINES FOR ARM POSITIONS IX GESTURE-LAS 





N. B. — The 

- 

-will be desig 

■ 

ture. In cases where ' " - - - 

- • 



Word or Idea express* 



d b> M- - u : 



DESCRIPTION: 






Tribe : 



Local 



■ 



TYPES OF BAND POSITIONS IN GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 






itward, hori- B - Fie t f back outward, ob- C— Clinched, with thumb ex- D— Clinched, hall of thumb 
apward. against middle of fore- 

upright, edge outward. finger, oblique, upward, 

palm down. 







E— Hooked, thumb aga d. thumb against G— Fingers Testing against n— Arched, thumb borizontal 

mil «i He, 1»:l1! of thumb, back up- against end of forefinger, 

LtworiL palm outward, ward. back upward. 





I—Closed, except forefii iger straight, up- K — Forefinger obliquely ex- L — Thumb vertical, forefin- 

Ige tended upward, others ger horizontal, others 

thumb, upright, palm out- outward. itward. closed, edge outward. 
ward. 







■ 



inl fingers 0— I 

i ■ -,...■ 
upward, reman 
nd thumb < loscd, palm 






nrard. 



-Fingers and thumb par- 
tially curved upward and 
separated, knuckles out- 
ward. 



TYPES OF HAND POSITIONS IN GESTUBE-LANGUAGE. 



71 






Q — Finders and thumb sen. R— Fin."ere and il,„ m i, „ 
arat.-d. slightly curve? 
downward. ratedi npT ^£ 





IT— Fingers collected to a point, 
thumb resting in middle. 



- 
ward. 



^V— Hand horizontal, flat, palm 
down- 



X — Han it, palm 

upward. 




th no in: 



X. B.- 

to show H 
body, which mns 
tion. The right and 1 

11 be nndersti 
with proper intimation be applied with cl 

exactly corresponds wit 

of tho alphabet nnder-the tyt- 

A, wore i :-\ time by th 

sheet ol 






EXAMPLES. 



Word or idea expressed by sign : To cut, with an aw. 

DE8I I.I1TIOX: 

With the right hand flattened \ changed borighl instead of left), palm 
'*+ upward, move it downward ic> tin- left side repeatedly from different oleva- 
tions, ending each stroke at the same point. 

ption or origin : From the art of felling a tree. 



Word or idea expressed by sign: A lie. 

desi riptios : 

Touch the lefi breasl ovei the heart, and pass Un- 
hand forward from the mouth, the two first fingers only 
rtendedand slightlyseparated(L, 1 — with thumb 
■ finger), 
ption or origin: Double-tongued. 



11""/-'/ or idea expressed hy sign: To ride. 

description: 

Place the firs! two fingers of the righl hand, thumb extended 
ownward, astraddle the first two joined and straight fingers of 
the left i T, I ). sidewise, to the right, 1 1 n -i i make several short arched 
ate forward with hands so joined. 

C :eption or origin: The horse mounted and in 

motion. 






T, 1. 
Dotted lines indicate movements to place the hand and ana in position to commence 

and not forming part of it. 
indicates commencement of movement in representing sign, or pan of sign. 

• •t' hand employed in the sign. 
Represents the termination of movements. 

Used in connection with dashes, shows the course of the latter when not otherwise 
intelligible. 



fiC 



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